Mercenary War 2: Dagger Zero
by Foxmerc
Summary: Ten months after the fall of Black Scythe, Andrea O'Donnell finds herself failing as a new member of special forces unit Dagger. But after a catastrophic final mission, she remains standing with old friends and new allies in a war to find the truth.
1. Prologue

[Author's Note: Greetings! After completing the monstrous project that was "One Death Away," I committed the last year and a half or so to my original writing, as well as continuing the western "Gunmen of Venom Hill." While I do plan on continuing that story, I'd like to see what kind of response this story receives, as well as possibly a sequel to ODA. It's a case of too many ideas, not enough time to write them all. This story is the sequel to "Star Fox: The Mercenary War," which is about seven years old right now. It's not a terribly long read and it's held up rather well over time so I do HIGHLY suggest reading it first before taking on this story to gain familiarity with the characters and setting.

Also, I uploaded this prologue and Chapter 1 at the same time, so be sure to continue on. NOTE: Like all of my fics, this story takes place in the Starfox 64 universe without inclusion of any sequels and their plot elements. Any characters from other Starfox games should be considered as a "reimagining" of him/her (those who read Krystal and Fara from "One Death Away" know what I mean =)). Lastly, please be aware that all of my story lines are self-contained; so, this story is a sequel to "The Mercenary War" but is not related in ANY way to "One Death Away" or any of my other stories. Feel free to PM me for any questions, I know it's something that isn't easily expressed fully in this blurb.

Ok, enough from me...thank you for reading and as always, I hope you enjoy! –Foxmerc ]

**Mercenary War 2: Dagger Zero**

Foxmerc

PROLOGUE

"What the hell's taking so long?

Hunter chuckled from the gunner's seat below and ahead of the annoyed pilot, the sound nearly lost in the bellow of fierce wind whipping ice and snow against the canopy glass. His helmet swayed as he stretched his stiff neck. "Only been two hours, Blue. Believe it or not, some people give tactics a shot before pulling the trigger."

"Pulling the trigger _is_ a tactic." Bluestar brushed his flightsuit sleeve back to check his watch. Two hours and five minutes already. "Christ, if they let me in there we'd be back home in a bar by now."

"Yeah, well, that's why the desk jockeys put me at the guns and you at the stick."

"No, they put me at the stick because I made a joke of TETRA's flight exam. Not bragging, just a fact."

He snorted. Whatever, Blue thought. Hunter knew he was right and was probably just as miserable, sitting in a two-man gunship parked on a rocky snowbank for two hours like forgotten leftovers in the back of the freezer. Blue started to notice a trend working, for a combined arms private military company like TETRA: any time the grunts were involved, it seemed he was on his ass waiting. It always reminded him why he never joined the military. One of the reasons anyway.

Luckily, even with main power off, the gunship's life support unit kept ticking so the two crewmen had heat. But just watching the harsh Fortunian wind swirl snow all around them and pile it around the skids up to the ship's belly…made him shiver just looking at it. The thermal canopy glass kept the windows clear so they had a nice, boring view of the cold planet's frozen wastes to go with the nice, boring mission. When he was absolutely sure another hour or so had gone by, Blue checked his watch.

Two hours and twenty minutes.

"Frickin' hell."

"Quit complaining," Hunter mumbled, scratching one of his lupine ears poking through the helmet's ear slots. "We could be freezing our asses off out there like the ground pounders."

"At least then we'd know what's taking so long."

Simple mission, really, Blue knew. Some local construction company was contracted to tear down and root up the foundation of an old bunker built by Venomian forces during the Lylat War. It sat hunkered way out in the middle of nowhere next to a forgotten comm relay station so it'd been sitting rotting all those years, dilapidated, half-buried, just a giant empty grave for wartime memories. Until the Fortunian government decided to have it cleared; part of their initiative to get rid of old Veomian remnant structures. All politics. Two weeks later, the site went dark. One day later, Fortunian officials contracted an orbiting TETRA cruiser to check it out and Blue get sent down to the winter wonderland with two squads of soldiers.

_"TETRA one-seven, this is Homefront. Status report."_

The no-nonsense female voice startled the daydreaming pilot and he realized he'd been dozing off. He opened his mouth to give a very colorful description of his thoughts regarding the ground team's progress, but he thought better of it. He knew the stern woman on the other end and she could make the phrase "bust my balls" very literal. He replied into his helmet's comm, "This is callsign Bluestar of gunship one-seven. Nothing happening here, Homefront."

_"Copy, Bluestar. Be advised, ground elements have breached the construction site perimeter and are securing the area. Initial reports suggest transport ships and terrain vehicles belonging to a military contractor not on the Fortunian payroll. Possibly the 'Claws. Stay sharp."_

Blue scowled at the name. "Roger, Homefront. Just say the word and I'll put these expensive guns to use. Wouldn't want all those pre-flight checks and tests to be for nothing."

_"Can the chatter and stay put until ordered otherwise, one-seven. Homefront out."_

The comm went dead and Hunter wasted no time laughing. "Damn, man, and I thought this planet was cold. You sure she's not an operations android?"

"You know how it is," Blue said, booting up the soft systems; half for something to do, half to be ready in case any 'Claws required a delivery of high-velocity energy discharge. "The ones who want it the most put up the most fight."

"Maybe they put up a fight because it's you."

"And what, your strong-sensitive angle's bringing 'em home?" The gunship's console lit up and started running diagnostic checks, everything from the thrusters to the guns, which Blue hated not being in control of. If he had his way, he'd never leave the comforts of a single-man fighter. But despite his exemplary operational record, TETRA didn't always let him have his way. Another little issue that kept him out of the military proper.

"I don't play any angle," Hunter scoffed back. He cleared his throat and started talking with a subdued, somber voice. "I really am strong and sensitive. Maybe more strong than sensitive, but…sometimes I think I'm that way because I'm afraid to express my true feelings. Maybe someday I'll find the right woman, one I can truly be honest with."

Blue chuckled at the act. His respect for Hunter went up a couple notches; he had a method and he worked it well. "Not bad. How 'bout you put the tissues away and run your weapons diagnostics?"

"Feel free to borrow from me. No shame in it."

"You have your method, I have mine, and mine's just fine." The pilot's console blipped to alert him that his gunner was checking his own systems. Blue frowned; if he had any real jealousy, it was from watching the wolf check all the firepower he had to play with.

"Yeah? Tell you what. I'll give you half a month's hazard bonus if you get the ice queen to say just one thing that's not mission-related. It won't happen, not with all the charm you pretend to—"

"Wait, wait…do you see that?" Hunter had Blue's attention once money came into play, but something peeked up over the ridge ahead of them a few miles on the horizon, something that easily clashed with the surrounding whiteness. "Is that smoke?"

The pillar of black grew as Hunter gazed ahead. "Definitely ain't snow."

Good enough for Blue. "Homefront, this is one-seven. We have what looks like—"

_"One-seven, you're cleared for power-up and AO insertion." _She spoke quicker, one step ahead of them, as good a sign as any that something was going on. _"Ground elements have encountered resistance; converge on the construction site and be ready to provide close air support and rapid extraction. Use caution."_

"Roger, Homefront," Blue replied as his hands flew across the startup controls, glad she couldn't see his devilish grin. The gunship hummed to life, thrusters undoing the hours of burial with an angry roar that blew the surrounding snow away in a great billow. "Any word on the hostiles yet?"

_"Ground team is reporting 'Claw uniforms, one-seven. Weapons free on any targets hostile to you or TETRA ground forces. Homefront out."_

"Looks like we might get some excitement on this snowball after all," Hunter said. "Ready when you are, Blue."

Blue fired the thrusters to full and punched the throttle up, leaving their makeshift landing pad in a cloud of vaporized snow, the familiar comforting whine and rumble of the ship filling his ears and veins like a buzz without the hangover. Though glad to be at home in the air once more, he wished again for a fighter rather than the bulky gunship. He'd been too used to every flick of the wrist and slightest gesture returning an equally graceful response, controls and guns all under the same fingers. In comparison, flying the gunship felt like slogging through a waist-deep swamp with a five-day survival pack. And no gun.

"HUD weapon navigation online," the wolf reported as they skimmed the frozen wastes at five hundred feet. "Primary repeater showing green, Hornets ready."

"Roger." Blue glanced down at his scanner, multiple red unidentified energy blips showing within two miles. Through the snowfall ahead, the tall, heavy machinery of the construction zone came into clear view, looming over the topside of the old bunker like predators over the kill. His own helmet HUD immediately picked out TETRA forces on the east side and displayed them before his eyes in blue luminescent outlines. The remaining energy readings earned yellow outlines. The pilot reported what he saw, more for the benefit of the ship's automatic mission log. "Visual on two TETRA G48 Landshark transports at the operation area's eastern border. Seven, repeat, seven ground transports of unknown origin in loose formation at the western border. Dimensions of several are consistent with 'Claw ATT Rex assault personnel carriers. Small arms fire is being exchanged."

"Solid copy," Hunter replied, his professional face slipping on as well for the mission duration. "Standing by to engage any confirmed hostiles."

With the combat zone close enough that individual rifle muzzle flashes blinked through the snow like deadly holiday lights, Blue pulled into a hover and activated the infrared zoom and scanner on his HUD. He knew damn well that the vehicle outline he saw earlier belonged to a 'Claw APC but the high-ups always needed confirmation to cover their asses. Sure enough, the 'Claw logo of a stylized sharp-edged red triangle was plastered on the sides of the APCs.

"We have confirmation of 'Claw personnel and vehicles," Blue said, backing out of the zoom. "Gunship one-seven is engaging."

"Fuckin' A!"

Hunter wasted no time. As the gunship swooped low and rolled into a circling pattern over the construction site, the wolf let loose with the heavy repeater, thick amber lasers pounding the 'Claw position until smoke and vaporized snow billowed high over the tallest cranes. One of the APCs went up in an explosive pillar of flame, bits of shrapnel flicking the gunship's hull. The remaining APCs got wise and diverted their roof turrets to the air, spitting bursts of laser fire up at the new threat. Blue expertly dodged and weaved, the attacks only accomplishing a slight change in the gunship's strafing course. Only when shoulder-mounted energy cannons were added to the fire was Blue forced to work for his pay.

"The boys came prepared, huh?" Blue uttered, jamming the stick to the left, barely avoiding a locked-on energy blast as it singed the starboard wing in passing.

The gunner grumbled in response, "God, man, keep it steady so I can nail 'em."

"You wanna get your ass back here and try this?"

"Sure, pull over by the assholes with the big guns."

Blue anticipated the next volley and, again cursing the ship's sluggishness, shot a burst of thrust to the right, giving Hunter a few precious seconds to launch a string of Hornet mini-missiles. A carpet of small explosions ripped across the 'Claw line, dimming the return fire but not silencing it completely. Pulling away to update his perspective, Blue saw the TETRA forces moving in to try and overtake the position. He kept a healthy distance but left a sharp eye watching to make sure the grunts wouldn't need more death from above.

"Homefront, this is Bluestar. Enemy positions softened considerably. TETRA ground elements moving to secure. Standing by as needed."

_"Acknowledged, gunship one-seven."_

Hunter leaned back and rolled his head around his neck to stretch it with a groan of exertion. "Guess we got 'em with their pants down. Probably not expecting a little company out here in the tundra."

"I dunno." The pilot watched the blue outlines proceed into the fire and ash near the bunker. "The 'Claws never have their pants down. I doubt they're out here just to poke around an old Venomian hole in the ground."

"Shut up and be happy for an easy assignment for once. Still, though, may want to get on the horn to Homefront and ask them to – Fuck!"

The explosion drowned out his curse.

Gunship one-seven's canopy was filled with the fireball that erupted from the bunker, the shockwave tossing it about, heavy shards of concrete and metal slamming against it and causing the proximity alert to whine in the crew's ears. Blue fought to regain control, his head ringing, and finally silenced the alerts once the ship was steady in his hands again. Through the cracked canopy glass, he and Hunter stared at the charred devastation of the construction site. The bunker was no more, replaced by a crater and a ring of twisted construction machinery and vehicles. Smoke billowed for nearly a mile in all directions, whipped around by Fortuna's winds, all that remained in the utter silence that had fallen over the area of operation. Blue's blood chilled at the absence of any blue outlines on his HUD.

"Holy hell," Hunter breathed, slapping the side of his helmet with the butt of his palm over and over. "My HUD's fried, getting nothing but fuzz. What the hell happened?"

"Homefront, this is gunship one-seven! What the f—"

_"One-seven, stand by for mission redirect."_

"Redirect?" Blue hacked in disbelief. "The entire bunker just blew into the damn stratosphere! I'm reading zero TETRA presence. We got to get down there and—"

_"We read the explosion, one-seven. The enemy is covering their tracks and exiting the area with an item of extreme priority. Medevac for ground forces is being dispatched; you're needed elsewhere."_

"This is bullshit," Hunter grumbled, shaking his head hard. "You hear how she's talking? This mission stinks, Blue. Command knows something we don't. This wasn't no recon gig."

_"Two convoys of fast-movers are exiting the area , one heading southeast toward Arctura Flat Spaceport, about a hundred fifty miles away. The other's going north to…an unknown destination. Topography reads nothing but wasteland for a thousand miles."_

"It's a decoy." Blue ramped up the throttle and blew through the smoke, turning to a southeast heading. "We're going after the first convoy. What exactly is this 'extreme priority' item we're looking for?"

_"Just stop the vehicles by any means necessary. Deadly force will not damage it. TETRA technicians will be sent once you've succeeded."_

"Big surprise," the wolf uttered, still banging his helmet to try and get his HUD's heart beating again. "The thing could be a nuke with fifteen seconds on the clock and they wouldn't tell us."

"We're on it, Homefront."

_"You _must_ stop that convoy before it reaches Arctura Flat airspace, one-seven. Our contract does not authorize us to operate in that vicinity."_

"We'll stop it. Out." Blue cut the connection and rolled his eyes at Hunter as he skimmed low over the snow. "Can you please quit your bitching and do your job? Please?"

"Did you see how many guys we lost back there? And the ice queen didn't even flinch. Don't you get tired of not being told what the hell we're doing here?"

"As long as the paychecks clear, I don't care what they tell me. If you want to get paid for knowing shit, go back to HQ and be a washed-up instructor. Otherwise get on the guns. We'll worry about the dead when we're sure we won't be joining them."

Hunter gave up on his HUD and fiddled with his control panel, punching in command after command to a stubbornly defiant holoscreen. "Auto-targeting is out. HUD is out. Guns are operational. Looks like I'll be doing this the old fashioned way."

"A hundred twenty miles to Arctura." A string of tiny blips appeared at the edge of the scanner. "Got'em, five miles out. 'Claw Raptor speeders, three of them. Fast buggers, but they're not going top speed. Looks like the one in the middle is a C-class, light cargo transport. That's our objective. You ready?"

"Let's get us some payback."

With the convoy in visual range, Blue flew by sight and slowly edged up to the side of the speeder column. Clouds of snow swelling in their wake, the agile craft, constructed more like aerodynamic aircraft than land-bound vehicles, paid no heed and continued on their beeline to escape.

At least, not until Hunter opened fire.

His first generous burst of seven discharges stitched the snow in front of the lead vehicle, causing it to swerve in surprise, but it quickly recovered. His next three bursts were enough to startle them but not one hit metal. In response, the convoy took an erratic course, weaving about the tundra and somehow managing to stay in formation. Blue was begrudgingly impressed as he struggled to keep his bulky gunship on top of them.

"Aim for the snow, maybe you'll hit an enemy."

"You ever try to manually align this sucker?" Hunter snapped back.

As if to flick the pilot off, the next burst peppered the lead vehicle and penetrated its energy block, blowing the entire front off and sending it rolling end over end to a violent halt. The other speeders jerked about to avoid their wrecked comrade and continued on their way, hugging close to each other. Blue checked his area scanner and grimaced as he raised his gaze and discerned the gleaming towers of Arctura Flat Spaceport on the horizon.

"Eighty miles, Hunter. Make something happen."

The gunner laid on the trigger and fired a long, deadly string of shots that tore up the tundra and eventually punched through the second escort, blowing the fuel tanks and sending the flaming wreckage to a cold grave. All that remained was the lonely transport, still speeding like hell and trying to get to safety. With Hunter's unpredictable gun sighting, Blue realized it was a very real possibility.

"Sixty miles."

"Give me a second." Hunter fired off a few single shots, each successive laser nearing contact with the transport.

"We're trying to destroy it, not goose it! Come on!"

"Screw what she said, I'm not putting any holes anywhere near the cargo hold. Anything could be in there."

As frustrated as he was becoming watching the miles tick down, he secretly didn't want to argue. Whatever was removed from the bunker, he doubted the Venomians were storing cotton candy and rainbows. Chances were that whatever was in that cargo hold was built to obliterate, gas, burn, or just in general murder as many people as possible. Things like that usually didn't mix with high-powered energy weaponry.

After another minute of failed shots, most missing but some smacking the enemy's hull without enough penetration to make a difference, Blue shot another glance to the ever-looming spaceport and barked, "Come on! Now or never!"

With a frustrated roar of his own, Hunter fired a full burst that sliced across the transport's roof, totaling the engine block. The vehicle lost power and careened into a series of spins, whipping up a cyclone of snow that blinded the gunship from it for a few seconds. Blue held his breath, praying the cargo didn't mind a bumpy ride, and released in relief when the air cleared and the transport was still right side up, albeit off-kilter and half buried in snow.

The pilot lowered the skids and put the gunship on the ground as quickly as possible, popping the canopy in the process. He and Hunter snatched the compact submachine guns from the braces beside their seats and hopped over the side to the snow below. Frigid Fortunian air smacked Blue in the face like a vengeful ex-girlfriend, stealing his breath for a few seconds while his lungs acclimated. He and his friend plodded through the knee-deep snow in an awkward jog the couple-hundred feet to the smoking Raptor.

"No mushroom cloud yet," Hunter wheezed over the bone-chilling wind. "Told you I could take it down."

"You want a medal?" Blue panted. "Next time you can fly that heavy bastard and I'll sit up front in the fun seat."

As they approached, the transport's driver, a lizard in the black and red uniform of the 'Claws, struggled through the broken windshield and stumbled onto the snow, no weapon anywhere in sight. He raised his hands above his head just in time to get a submachine gun burst to the chest that killed him before he hit the powder. Hunter didn't even break stride as he fired, as if it had been as mindless as swatting a fly. Though he knew he should've said something, Blue found it hard to care about the execution after witnessing all his TETRA brothers get blown away.

Letting his partner root through the cargo cab, Blue put his hand to his ear to muffle the whistling wind. "Homefront, this is one-seven. Convoy has been successfully halted. Cargo secure. Our ship has suffered structural damage and is possibly unfit for space travel. Request pickup for—"

"Hey, Blue! You better come see what all the trouble was for!"

"Wait one, Homefront."

Blue trudged past the dead driver, his blood turning the snow a color that morbidly reminded him of cherry snowcones. Very syrupy cherry snowcones. Shaking the image from his head, he joined Hunter at the rear of the cab where the wolf had retrieved a footlocker-sized metal reinforced container. It lay open before him.

Empty.

"Well, man," Hunter chuckled, grinning to hide the intense anger that was making him shiver more than the cold. "Looks like this was the decoy."

Blue kicked the side of the wreckage and unleashed a string of his own curses. "Homefront! It's a goddamn empty case! Get someone down to that north-bound convoy and—"

_"Negative, one-seven." _The usually commanding voice had lost some of its assurance. _"A cloaked dropship was waiting for them. They're gone. They knew we'd go after your convoy."_

Gritting his teeth, Blue clenched his fists and closed his eyes. Nothing boiled his blood more than being played, especially by the 'Claws. Not the cold, not the boredom, not TETRA's cloak and dagger games, not even Hunter's complaining. After a minute of feeling like his gut was going to explode, he felt the same deflated defeat wash over him that he'd heard in their operation handler's voice. Opening his eyes again, he saw Hunter sitting on the end of the cab with his legs hanging over the side, rubbing his temple, also looking like he got kicked in the stomach.

All the lives lost, all the effort, all for something they never would've been told about even if they hadn't been given the run-around by the 'Claws.

"I need a drink, Homefront," Blue mumbled. "When can we get the hell out of here?"

_"Maintain your current position, one-seven. Two-five is on en-route. If your ship is unsafe, observe proper cold-weather survivability until then."_

"Just thinking about the body that goes along with this voice should keep me hot enough, Homefront."

Hunter shot a cockeyed look at him and only the wind could be heard in the dead radio silence that followed for nearly half a minute.

_"Go to hell, Bluestar."_

The two pilots burst out laughing, the sound rolling over the flat expanse of frozen plains. It was just what they needed.

"God, Blue." Hunter wiped tears from his eyes when he'd calmed down. "She's gonna shiv you in your sleep."

"At least then I'd get her in bed before I died. And hey, you owe me half a month's hazard pay."

"How do you figure?"

Blue grinned and rested his submachine gun on his shoulder as he began to plod back toward the warmth of the gunship. "I got her to say something unrelated to the mission."


	2. The Last Mission

[Author's Note: Since I uploaded this and the prologue at the same time, please be sure to go back and read the prologue first if clicking on the story linked you here. Thanks for reading and enjoy, and thank you for any reviews and comments. -Foxmerc]

\

CHAPTER 1  
>The Last Mission<br>_Cornerian Army Special Operations Command, Corneria City_  
><em>1150 hours<em>

_\  
><em>

Gage felt like the bottom of his boots after a muddy, bloody mission.

It was his own fault and he knew it. His whole life had been about doing things that had to be done, no matter how unpleasant, painful, or dangerous. His whole life boiled down to putting himself between Corneria and the never ending procession of enemies that wanted to harm her, even if it meant relationships and a normal life were DOA as soon as he slapped the Dagger emblem on his sleeve. His whole life had been about decisions…calculated, instinctive, whatever, as long as it got the job done and his team home. A good decision could still end with a teammate dead. A bad decision could end with a million civilians dead.

And a dumb decision could end with a frowning captain standing in a hallway feeling like the bottom of his boots.

Letting out an uncomfortable breath, he stared at the brass plaque eye-level on the dark wood door in front of him:

_LTG J. Pepper_

_Director_

_Operations Coordination_

_Cornerian Army Special Operations Command_

A cute way of saying "mercenary wrangler" as far as Gage was concerned. General Pepper oversaw military contracts with PMCs and privateers and any other sell-out looking for blood money or an action hard-on. His job was hiring them and coordinating them with the true believers in the military who figured their planet was a worthier cause than a few extra creds. The general was okay in Gage's book though; he knew from experience that he only hired the best and kept the real soldiers his priority. And Pepper knew the very short list of contractors Dagger would work with. Technically, he could order Dagger to work with anyone he wanted, but he respected the captain's requests. Good man. Even better commanding officer.

Gage rapped his knuckles on the wood below the plaque. When the gruff voice returned, he opened up and slipped in.

If the general and Gage shared anything, it was disdain for the CASOC administrative building's glass and steel theme. The Dagger captain never wanted an office – a few hours in a dropship was about as cooped up as he liked to be – but one was foisted on him anyway when he became the unit's commanding officer. Just a glorified broom closet with his name on it, somewhere he could access secure files through his console or crash on the old futon he shoved in there. General Pepper's answer to the boring décor was to drown the office in antiques from hundreds of years ago. Or replicas anyway. A dark, elegant collection of cherry wood cabinets and drawers dominated the steel paneled walls and a deep rug underfoot stretched from the door back to the panoramic window to the rear. Brass lamps lit the office in a dim glow, one from atop the engraved wood desk where it illuminated the old hound's face. He sat writing out some forms, his console turned off, and stuck the fountain pen back in its brass sheath upon glancing up and seeing his visitor. Anyone else in that office writing with that pen would've looked ridiculous but Pepper looked, as far as Gage was concerned, probably just as dignified as the guys who used it back when it was modern.

"Captain Birse," he said. "Come in. My aide told me you only need a minute, and I hope that's true. Seems the older I get the more places I have to be."

"Yes, sir, just a minute." Gage snapped a salute and stepped before the desk. "I have somewhere to be also."

The general leaned back in his chair and let out a groan of someone stretching after being hunched over for too long. "Your unit was called up for the Feryon mission, correct?"

"Yes, sir. Dagger's running a few ship layout simulations while transportation's being prepped."

Pepper nodded thoughtfully and leaned forward again, gesturing for the fox to relax and stand at ease. He did so, though he felt anything but relaxed knowing why he was there. "Birse, it's been a while since we talked. God knows we both have had our hands full. Dagger took some heavy losses during the fight against the Black Scythe last year."

"Yes, sir."

"Finding replacements for Dagger casualties isn't easy. It's not exactly just filling the ranks back in. Sometimes the most qualified candidate isn't the right candidate, if you know what I mean."

"Cohesion, sir," Gage said, the conversation bothering him. Hitting too close to home, as if the old hound knew why he was there. "We're a family. Takes a while to make everything click."

Pepper gave another slow, deliberate nod. "You seemed confident we found the right guys and gals after the last round of selection. Four successful missions so far. The new blood's working out then, are they?"

He had to know, Gage thought. He cleared his throat and stepped carefully into this little minefield he'd created. "Sergeant Stelton is a prodigy with anything electronic, also finished top of his company in MOUT courses and marksmanship. After a few combat tours with the 4th Expeditionary, he caught CASOC's eye. He's working out great so far. Same with PFC Archer. He studied marksmanship under the same instructor as Delaine. They were pretty fierce competitors from what he tells me. Lots of respect. I think Archer's going above and beyond to prove himself and I'm not about to stop him."

Gage stopped blabbering, one name short. Before he could continue, Pepper dropped the name.

"And Corporal O'Donnell?"

The captain took in a breath, trying to go ahead with it, but his chest fell without a word.

"Captain," Pepper continued, "You're the most dedicated soldier I've ever met. You never slack when it comes to your men or your assignments, so I know that the only thing capable of bringing you here to my office instead of preparing for the Feryon mission with the rest of Dagger, is something more important."

Gage felt like an idiot, half-embarrassed for standing there twiddling his thumbs like some snot-nosed recruit caught going AWOL, and half-embarrassed for having to admit a mistake he should've seen coming a mile away. No more. His jaw set and he spit it out.

"Sir, we need to go back to selection. Corporal O'Donnell needs to be replaced."

The general didn't seem surprised, and Gage wasn't surprised that he wasn't surprised. The after-action reports over the past year didn't paint her in a good light. As was said, it could've been a natural part of breaking in new members…but it wasn't and it didn't take a genius to see it.

Pepper straightened up in his chair and leaned on his left armrest, propping up his chin with a fist. "Why come to me with this? General Packard takes care of recruitment and transfers. And why right before a mission?"

"Sir, Corporal O'Donnell's no fool. She knows she's screwing up and I think she knows it's coming. I'd like for this to be her last mission and I'd like her head in the game for it, so I think telling her now would be best." Rip her heart out now or later? The thought wrenched his stomach. He swallowed and added, "She'll be disappointed, but she won't be distracted by some looming question of whether she's being transferred or not. I can't have a distracted operative."

The ABCs of special operations. A distracted operator is a dead operator. So obvious that all Pepper did was gesture a bit with his fingers in acknowledgement.

"And," Gage continued, "I came to you because I don't want her treated like just some other special operations washout who couldn't take it. I think she has potential. She may be ready for Dagger someday with enough field experience and confidence. I'd appreciate your help in convincing General Packard to give her reassignment in the Rangers and not blacklisting her from future selection."

Pepper hid a scoff behind a closed muzzle. Any other day Gage might have been offended, but not now, not after giving that request. "Captain, the Cornerian military was very grateful for Corporal O'Donnell's actions during the crisis last year. We gave her a ticket to selection as you requested, but she didn't impress anyone."

"I was a slow bloomer in Basic, sir. People can still—"

"Selection isn't Basic, captain. Selection is about finding the best soldier for the toughest job, it's about the man rather than pointing and shooting and marching. O'Donnell could shoot fine, she had some good instincts, but she didn't have that extra edge. She wasn't Dagger material." He paused for a few seconds, then added, "You're the only one who thought she was."

Gage couldn't argue with that. Fear, hesitation, it all came out in some form or another. He thought she'd get past it like she did so many times during the "crisis," but it never happened. She was a hard sell to the CASOC directors and in the end, he knew damn well the only reason she was accepted to Dagger was because of his insistence. He suspected she knew it also even though she was never told one way or the other. He shifted in his uneasy at-ease stance and started to reply but Pepper cut him off.

"Are you two still in a relationship?"

Gage grimaced. It had to come up sooner or later. He shifted again, unable to find a comfortable footing, and cleared his throat. "Soldier-to-soldier romantic relationships are forbidden in the Cornerian Army, sir, especially within specialized units."

"Right. And I'm not allowed to have a bottle of aged scotch in my bottom hutch cabinet."

The captain involuntarily glanced at the dark wood hutch off to the side of the desk. If he had Pepper's job he probably would've kept some hooch around also, but his point was made. "For Corporal O'Donnell, keeping certain feelings secret wasn't as easy as locking them behind a little wooden cabinet door. Things have been strained recently." Gage shook his head and just blurted out the rest, eager to get it over with. "Sir, I fucked up. I made a recommendation based on my personal feelings for a soldier and it was a bad call. Corporal O'Donnell needs to be transferred."

"And you don't want her treated like a washout."

"Yes, sir."

Pepper hesitated, taking a deep breath through his nose. "I'm still wondering why you came to me with this instead of another director."

"Well, sir…I believe there's no way you can say no."

A look crept onto his face, a look reserved for disrespected brass. "Care to repeat that, captain?"

"I believe you promised a mutual friend of ours two unconditional favors, one for him and one for me. For our parts in the conflict last year. No questions asked."

The general sighed and pinched the bridge of muzzle, eyes clenched shut. He stayed like that for half a minute until Gage wondered whether he was fighting a migraine or just regretting the promise. Or both.

"McCloud," he finally uttered. "Even when he's off in hiding he can be a pain in my ass. Captain, you do realize that favor for you was meant for an emergency; something that could save your life one day. Are you sure you want to use it for Corporal O'Donnell to get her a better assignment and keep her off the Dagger selection blacklist?"

Easiest question yet for Gage. "Yes, sir."

Pepper tossed his hands up and straightened in his chair. "Alright then; easier than a lot of things you could've asked. See General Packard so he can organize a director conference once you return from the Feryon mission. I'll take care of the rest."

"Than you, sir." Gage snapped another salute and turned on his heel to leave, one small burden off his mind. But he still had to tell Andrea.

Before the fox reached the door, Pepper stopped him with a strange remark that he somehow understood as soon as it was said.

"It's hard juggling two loves, isn't it?"

Gage turned around in time to see him looking at a picture of his family on his desk. "Sir, permission to speak freely."

He waved his hand casually.

"Do you ever feel like an asshole for being as dedicated to your job as you are to the woman you love? Maybe sometimes more?"

Pepper cracked a grin. "It takes a special kind of woman to understand that it's not just any job. I got lucky. You did the right thing here, asking for Corporal O'Donnell's transfer, both for her sake and your team's."

"I know. But I still have to go to her right now and kick her off the only thing she's ever dreamed of being a part of." Gage turned back to the door and uttered in farewell, "Sir."

The door slid shut behind him and he felt worse. Asking for clearance to transfer Andrea was the easy part.

Telling her…

\

* * *

><p>\<p>

The pain built up in her gut, spreading up to choke her and flow through her veins like acid.

She would've screamed if she'd been awake.

Through the agony that paralyzed her, she became aware of movement and a dull roar, and somehow being blinded by light even though she didn't remember opening her eyes. Her vision returned in a mess of blurry motion and chaos, pristine white through a haze of red. The roar in her ears became clearer…voices, too many to make out, though some words matched the rhythm of the blurs. She could feel her heart pound faster as her surroundings cleared up and just frightened her further, throwing more chaos at her with each passing second. Her breath rasped in short spurts that hurt her chest and throat.

"—trauma with possible hemorrhaging to the…wait, wait, constricted pupils."

"Pulse and brain activity spike."

"The OR is prepped for surgery, doctor."

The world rushed past her eyes, faces floating over her in clean sky blue and snow white. The intermittent blinding was caused by ceiling lights breezing by her as she was rolled down corridor after corridor; she realized she was looking up. Part of her recognized the familiarity of a hospital but she couldn't remember getting there. Panic gripped her chest.

"Heart rate at two-ten BPM!"

"Can you hear me? Do you know where you are?"

She realized the deep voice was talking to her. One of the blurry faces took shape; a canine in blood-streaked white, his wide eyes staring right into hers. Whose blood was that?

"Can you hear me?" The hound stuck a digit in front of her face and moved it back and forth, her eyes involuntarily following it. "It's very important you try to stay awake. Damn it, we may be too late to prevent brain damage."

"What…"

She recognized that voice: her own. She knew it was her because the vibration in her throat stung as if she'd swallowed a handful of nails.

"Getting some response," the frazzled canine said. "Try to relax; you're at ERS Tanager in orbit around Fortuna. You're in good hands. Can you remember your name?"

Fortuna…why Fortuna?

"Do you know your name?"

Her name; nothing short of death would've made her forget her name. All her life, it was all that defined her in everyone's eyes. She tried to say it but her throat caught on a stab of pain in her chest. Again she choked it out and this time drove through the pain.

"Andrea…Andrea O'Donnell."

\

"O'Donnell, check in."

Her hand went to the earpiece of her monocular HUD. "Extraction point clear, no activity."

No response from Gage. Andrea let out a sigh and stood from her kneeling position, giving her tingling ankle a break. She was used to his no-nonsense chatter once the boots hit the deck and the safeties flicked off, but this time his blunt words felt more personal. She wondered if their long talk before the mission had stuck in his gut as much as it stuck in hers. God knew she had enough time to think about it, standing by the airlock at the end of a dull gray metal corridor, decked out in her subdued gray and black Dagger loadout like the universe's most expensive bouncer for the universe's most boring nightclub. The energy submachine gun in her hands felt more like a decoration than a useful piece of equipment.

Andrea had been staring down the damn hallway for nearly an hour while Gage led the rest of Dagger into the depths of the Fortunian cargo ship _Feryon_. Part of her was glad that she was given EP security duty, even if it was just a tactical way of saying, "stay here and try not to blow the mission." She didn't feel like being with the rest of the team, even Gage. The only thing more strained than her relationship with Dagger was her relationship with him.

So the gray wolf planted herself against the grimy wall by the aft airlock, alone with her thoughts and the hum of the ship's engine, trying to savor one last time what it felt like to wear the gear of a Dagger operator.

"Possible contact," Gage reported. "Stand by, EP."

Contact? Andrea scrunched my nose in thought. The team would've been using hand signals, so she was out of the loop until someone decided she needed to know something. The distance monitor on her HUD layout put them somewhere near the starboard bow of the huge cargo ship…what was supposed to be a derelict cargo ship. She shouldered her weapon and kept a keener eye on the stretch of emptiness ahead of her.

But, nothing. Not even a hissing pipe to startle her like in a bad horror movie. Andrea found herself visualizing a firefight erupting around the far corner, lasers smacking the wall, Gage and the others bursting from the fray and hauling toward the airlock, hell on their heels. And there Corporal O'Donnell would be, ready, gunning down everyone behind them, saving the day. Finally showing that she had what it took to wear the emblem of the 1st SFD – Echo on her arm. She saw her lasers cutting through the enemy…

Pirates?

No, mercenaries.

Well…no. She'd had enough of them to last a lifetime.

Venomian remnants?

Right.

She saw her lasers cutting through the brown and black uniforms of Venomians. When the smoke cleared and everyone was safe, she saw relieved grins and thanks all around for her spot-on shooting and exemplary defense.

"Moron," Andrea grumbled at herself, blinking away the daydream. If anything, her lapse of focus just proved even more that she didn't belong with the best.

Regardless, she let myself relax a little after a good ten minutes. The team's distance hadn't changed; whatever they found, it was interesting and apparently didn't require her presence.

Next thing she knew, she was coughing up blood.

\

"Corporal O'Donnell, please! You have to remain calm!"

Andrea gasped for air, fluid clogging her throat, a sudden wave of panic sending her nerves into a frenzy. It all came back to her like a dream within a dream, fuzzy but real enough. She tried to sit up, struggling against the hands trying to push her down, every muscle screaming in pain. She caught a glimpse of herself on the gurney that sent a shiver down her spine: a blood-soaked, mangled subdued black and gray operations suit, all the gear and armor cut away. The shock gave the nurses enough time to push her back down flat.

"Where…" the wolf coughed, straining to breathe. "My team…Gage…"

"Please, calm down!" the hound doctor barked. "We need to get you to surger—"

Her right arm broke free and she grabbed a bloody fistful of his white coat, bringing the gurney to an abrupt halt. "Where?"

She didn't need him to tell her what happened; his expression said it all. Andrea could feel her grip weakening from desperate disbelief as soon as his eyes met hers. As the gurney rolled on and the bright lights again passed overhead, her vision became blurry again, tears mingling with the blood on her face.

\

Corporal O'Donnell groaned and pushed herself up to her hands and knees, her head swimming. She tasted wet copper and nearly doubled back over from nausea. The boring corridor had come alive in swirls of red and yellow alarms, a warning klaxon blaring in her sore head. Ignoring the drops of blood falling from her forehead, the wolf struggled to her feet with her hand against the wall for support. The ship vibrated beneath the palm; all around her, anything not bolted down shuddered and toppled as the _Feryon_ moaned from deep within its belly.

She remembered the force pushing against her chest before everything went black…an explosion?

"O'Donnel to any Dagger element," Andrea croaked, more blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth.

_I'm gonna die…_

_I'm gonna die as a goddamn EP babysitter._

She gritted her teeth. "Any Dagger element, respond!"

Her hand went to her ear to make sure the HUD was still working and slapped bare fur. Blinking in addled confusion, Andrea realized her HUD wasn't even in front of her left eye. The device lay on the floor a few feet away, probably knocked off her head when the rest of her was battered around. So she was going to die an idiot talking to herself also.

Frustrated, she snatched up the HUD and nearly fell over again as the ship quaked violently. She stuck the comm receiver in her ear and affixed the amber lens over her left eye. At least it looked like it was still working.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Every Dagger callsign in the frequency list was grayed out…signal lost. Dead.

Andrea's focus hovered over "Longbow" and stayed there, glued to it through the chaos that tore apart the _Feryon_…until a final explosion ripped through the metal beast and killed it once and for all.

She would've screamed if she'd been awake.

\

* * *

><p>\<p>

When she woke up in a sterile white hospital room, it was the first time since the Feryon mission that Andrea felt truly awake rather than living a lucid nightmare. The bloody trip on the gurney seemed like an old memory, half written in faded time, and for a few moments she fooled myself into thinking she made it all up. Dagger wasn't gone. Gage wasn't dead.

Just a dream.

But she only had to try and get up to come crashing back to reality. She couldn't see all the bandages under the hospital gown and sheets but could feel them, tight and unforgiving, stretching and retracting with every little muscle flex. She could feel the heat of medigel at work on her wounds, feel the stiffness of her left leg and right arm bound in thermold casts. A holoscreen panel beside the bed displayed her vitals and gave a little tone as it read her heart rate. Still a little groggy, the wolf swallowed a few times on a scratchy throat and groaned as she tried to shift in the bed, searching futilely for a comfortable position. Broken messes like her were apparently standard procedure onboard the ERS Tanager; a nurse strode into my room a few minutes later with a pitcher of water and a pharmacy's worth of pills in a segmented tray, coolly handing them to the patient one at a time and rattling off a script of rules to follow: don't get out of bed, ring for a nurse if anything is needed, no scratching the casts, and so on. Whatever. If Andrea had to swallow a few medicinal jelly beans and listen to a speech to get water on her dry throat, so be it.

There was only one thing she cared about hearing anyway.

"How did I get here?"

The feline nurse pursed her lips, pouring another cup of water for me. "Would it surprise you if I said I can't discuss details?"

"No." Andrea knew the drill. Cornerian brass probably dropped the sledgehammer of silence on the Tanager as soon as they heard about the mission fiasco. She'd have to wait for the debrief to find out anything.

"You're not the first soldier we've tended to, dear," the nurse continued. "And you're not the first who officially isn't here."

She hesitated, popping another pill in the seemingly endless buffet, unsure of whether she actually wanted the answer to the question on the tip of her tongue. "Am I…the only person not officially here? Did any others arrive here with me?"

For the second time, all she received was a sad look in response. And for the second time, her heart fell. Except this time she couldn't just pass out and drown the pain with unconsciousness. She stayed awake, swallowing the pills one by one as hard as she could to keep the swelling tears down her throat.

The nurse must have sensed Andrea wasn't taking the news too well; she picked up the tray and gave a smile that only a nurse could muster, forged from being around so much pain that had to be lifted. "We can do the rest of these later. You hungry?"

Andrea shook her head.

"Try to get some rest then. Doctor Sandson will be along soon to discuss your injuries. Don't worry though; you're expected to make a full recovery."

The door slid shut behind her with a soft whisper.

Up until that point, the wolf's own well-being hadn't even been on her mind. She could've woken up with half the Feryon's blast door sticking out her forehead and her first thoughts still would've been on Gage. For some reason, hearing that she would be fine made her feel worse. Her whole team dead, the only man she ever loved dead…but she'd be fine because she was the black sheep of the team stuck guarding an empty corridor.

Alone, her thoughts surfaced and played out before her on the blank ceiling where she stared. Life had been anything but easy since she could remember. Not exactly a storybook childhood, unless the storybook was a tragic fable. She thought getting away from her parents with her brother would make things better but...

_No…_

She'd gone too long without thinking of Wolf to start now.

But it didn't matter. She thought of him anyway, everything from how he treated her during the war to the heat and flash of her own gun when she put a laser through his brain years later. The bastard may not have given his sister the curse of a last name, but he was the one who turned it infamous.

"O'Donnell," she said aloud, hating it as soon as it left her muzzle.

Andrea was tired of hating her own name. For so long, she'd hated everything she was affiliated with…her family, Starwolf, Venom, the Viper's Kiss. Everything until she made an ass out of herself trying to meet Gage and Fox, which led to her tagging along with them during the old "mercenary war" days over a year ago. It was the first time she felt good about what she was fighting for.

Another memory surfaced, one she'd nearly forgotten because of how damn embarrassing it was. Still a good memory, if only because Gage was there. On the ceiling she saw myself sitting in the Great Fox's galley, technically a prisoner after being caught infiltrating the ship, but Gage and Fox seemed more curious of her than anything else. Fox sat with her, sharing a box of crackers, while Gage paced around the table. She was trying to rationalize why she went through such lengths to talk to them. She saw her mouth opening and blushed even back in her hospital bed, still feeling stupid about what she said.

"It's stupid, I know. I don't tell many people this. But…I guess now's not the time to hide things."

She remembered thinking they would laugh at her, they'd think she was crazy, then probably blow her out the airlock.

"When I was young, more than anything, I wanted to be a…a…superhero."

It was the only way at the time Andrea could express what joining up with them would mean to her. As far as she was concerned, Dagger was a pantheon of heroes. And Gage Birse…as she grew to know him over the following weeks, grew to love him, she realized he was the antithesis to O'Donnell. She'd never known anyone like him, and that remained true.

"Andrea Birse."

She said it out loud before she even thought about it and immediately the lump in her throat was back. She couldn't hold it this time. Hot tears streaked down her muzzle to stain the pristine sheets at her neck. Alone with the sad tone of her own heartbeat, all she could focus on was how close they'd come. After the mercenary conflict, she had Gage in her arms and she was given the opportunity to try out for Dagger. A dream come true! For the first time in a very long time, she dared to hope that things would turn out alright.

And in the blink of an eye, both disappeared.

Andrea closed her eyes to fight the tears, hoping she'd drift off to sleep to give herself a break. Instead she thought about Gage and how their last minutes together were spent. Not in each others' arms, not cuddling, not laughing or trying to playfully show each other up at the range…

No.

She had to listen to him tell her that she was being kicked off Dagger. She had to just sit there and try to hold back the tears just like now, trying so hard not to make him the bad guy. She saw how much it hurt him, having to tell her, and it only made her feel more guilty. But she still didn't tell him it wasn't his fault. She should've thanked him for his help in giving her the chance, should've told him it was her own failing and not his. But part of her, the part of her she regretted, was too damn angry.

So they both sat there in Andrea's quarters in agonizing silence, spending their last moments together guilty and heartbroken.

She remembered her last words to him. She'd been quiet the whole time he talked, staring at her lap, and he finally asked her to say something, anything. She could only get out a few words with a decently steady voice and she said them aloud again in the hospital bed, not sounding much better off this time around:

"Did you always know?"

He blinked and lowered his eyes but never answered. Hours later in the hospital bed, Andrea began to wonder if he knew what she was asking, or even whether she knew herself. Did he always know she'd eventually fail? Did he always know she wasn't as good as he hoped she was? Did he always know their relationship would be so difficult with Dagger between them? No matter what it truly meant, it was a rotten last four words between them.

But they gave her a lot to think about.

As she felt her eyes growing heavier, weary from tears and a stressful day, she turned it around on herself and wondered if she always knew she wasn't cut out for Dagger.

She finally fell into a restless sleep wondering if maybe the dream that had kept her going so many years was really more of a curse.

\

* * *

><p><em>Cornerian Army Special Operations Command, Corneria City<br>Eight days later_

_\  
><em>

"Corporal O'Donnell? They'll see you now."

Andrea nodded at the young private and stood from the bench, her recently healed arm and leg fighting stiffness, each just a day out of their casts. The halls of the CASOC complex had been silent for most of the two hours she'd been waiting, leaving her enough uninterrupted time to ponder and worry over what the CASOC board of directors had in store for her. The anticipation made her want to just get it over with but now that the time had come, she wanted to be anywhere but there.

With a shaky breath, she hit the activation switch and the hearing room's double doors swished open.

Ten sets of scrutinizing eyes awaited her, nine belonging to generals of the various military branches and one belonging to a civilian in a suit worth more than a month of soldier's pay: the board of directors for the Cornerian Army Special Operations Command. They sat at a long table on a raised platform near the far end of the chamber, before dozens of rows of seats, midday sunlight streaming down from the decorative skylights above. Normally the room was used for tribunals and official proceedings, packed with reporters and military staff. But now it lay empty, save for the ten most powerful people in Lylat's special operations and little old Corporal O'Donnell.

Andrea snapped to attention. "Corporal O'Donnell reporting as ordered."

"Have a seat, corporal," replied the elderly four-star jackal in the middle. Andrea recognized him as General Gaines, Head Director of CASOC, the man who reluctantly agreed to let Andrea try out for Dagger in the first place. His eyes spoke enough to say he wasn't all that surprised to see her in this kind of situation.

Andrea sat at a small table right in front of the platform, feeling as exposed as a prisoner before a firing squad. Each director continued perusing their personal holoscreens for a few more minutes, no doubt going over her less than exemplary file as well as the latest mission.

Finally, the eyes once again rested on her and General Gaines spoke, clearing his throat first as if to give her time to brace herself.

"The board has been studying your mission report for the Feryon catastrophe very closely. Surely, you realize what a blow this is to the Cornerian military. Detachment Echo was unrivaled in their success and skill."

"It's a great loss for me too, sir," Andrea said.

"I'm sure. Most everyone who's worn a uniform since the war knows what it is to lose friends. Our job here today is to assess what exactly went wrong and how we can prevent it in the future. General Simon?"

Simon, director of the intelligence branch. The feline Brigadier General to Gaines' side spoke up but kept his eyes down to read from something on the desk. "Corporal, your report states that Captain Birse left you at the insertion point to guard Dagger's only means of extraction. Over an hour later, Captain Birse reported possible contact and ordered you to stand by. A short time after, an explosion erupted from deep inside the Feryon."

_"Any Dagger element, respond!"_

Andrea shivered and sucked in sharp breath. None of the generals seemed to notice. "Yes, sir…yes, sir, that's right."

"You were rendered unconscious and awoke to find your team's signals severed. Your pilot evacuated you and cleared the area shortly before the Feryon was consumed by the explosion." Simon's gaze rose and he looked at her with a furrowed brow. "Corporal, your team was sent onboard the Feryon due to failed communications with the bridge and the fear of a possible hijacking. Did he ever report contact with hostile forces?"

"No, sir. Only dead crew members."

Simon's eyes narrowed. "What did he find in the cargo hold?"

Andrea hesitated at the question. Why should she know any more than them? "He never said, sir. As I mentioned in my report, I believe my team located a bomb set by the hijackers for the purpose of destroying the ship and its contents. It was a Fortunian government freighter with relief supplies headed for Macbeth, so I speculated—"

"Venomian loyalists, yes, I read." He didn't sound impressed. "Leave the speculation at the door, corporal, we're here to find out what actually _did _happen."

"If I may, general." The canine in the suit, relatively young at around forty, clicked through various layouts on his holoscreen. Andrea knew him as Mr. Stuart, civilian oversight director and liaison with the government. Gage always had plenty of other, colorful names for him. "I don't think the mention of Venom is entirely irrelevant here. Corporal O'Donnell…that name was rather familiar around here far before you joined Dagger."

Andrea groaned deep in her throat. She knew this would come up somehow. "I'm sure the board is aware of my family history. It has nothing to—"

"If I may, if I may," the suit interrupted, holding up his hand. "We're certainly all well acquainted with your exploits aiding Captain Birse and Fox McCloud during Black Scythe's string of attacks. However, you still spent most of your life with outlaw mercenary groups, including number one on Corneria's most wanted list during the Lylat War, which happened to be led by your brother, Wolf."

"I was never a part of Starwolf; I just helped a family member I once loved. During the end, I was as much my brother's enemy as anyone here."

"So you've claimed. But I still find it odd that you, out of every highly-skilled soldier on the Feryon, were the one to make it out alive."

General Gaines spoke up before Andrea could reply. "Director Stuart, this hearing is not a dissection of the corporal's character; she passed special forces selection as well as a full CDIA security probe. Do you have any evidence to present that indicates her involvement in this mission's failure?"

"Perhaps not intentionally, general, but O'Donnell's record in itself merits questioning. I believe she was a danger to her squad, and I believe General Pepper would agree with me."

Gaines glanced to his right at the old hound, who had been sitting quietly during the hearing, his eyes either on Andrea or distant in deep thought. She knew Pepper to be a man close to his soldiers; losing Gage and Dagger must have felt like losing a squad of his own. As he straightened in his chair and his eyes regained focus, he looked at Andrea in a way she couldn't decipher. She knew he never fully approved of her being on Dagger, but given her role in helping Fox, he always showed her courtesy and leniency. But she also knew that he was a man who took his job seriously and he wouldn't go easy on her now.

"It's true that Corporal O'Donnell's time with Dagger proved unsatisfactory," Pepper began, his voice somber. "In fact, shortly before his last mission, Captain Birse came to me to recommend her transfer to a normal Ranger battalion."

Andrea felt her face flush beneath her fur. Even though she knew about all of it, it still humiliated her to hear it out loud, especially before the directors.

"Corporal O'Donnell is an accomplished marksman and demonstrated high marks in tactical procedure and knowledge. She simply lacks the necessary experience and instinct of a Dagger operator. I believe her assignment to Dagger to be the result of an overzealous and possibly clouded judgment call from Captain Birse…as he himself admitted."

General Gaines nodded slowly. "Corporal, do you have anything to say to these observations?"

Andrea took a moment and swallowed, trying to maintain her composure. "Captain Birse spoke with me before the mission as well regarding this. I didn't disagree with him then, and I don't now, sir."

The Head Director sat back and looked over his holoscreen for more than a minute before saying, "Given Corporal O'Donnell's mission report and our limited scope of knowledge given what transpired aboard the Feryon for the time being, I don't see sufficient evidence to believe her action or inaction led to her team's deaths. Any disagreements?"

The board remained silent.

"However, when I take into consideration Mr. Stuart's and General Pepper's statements regarding Corporal O'Donnell's lacking performance since her assignment to Dagger, I'm inclined to believe Dagger should be rebuilt from the ground up…possibly without the corporal's participation. General Pepper, as operations coordinator you have a more personal contact with the men than most of us. Is there anything else the board should know?"

Pepper still wore the hard countenance; any misgivings he may have had to subjecting Andrea to further humiliation didn't show. "Corporal, how did you get along with your teammates?"

"Um…fine, I suppose, sir. I was a newcomer to the team so naturally I had to build—"

"We're all aware of the gauntlets new men must pass through to be accepted into their units. FNGs having to prove themselves and all. I asked how you got along with your teammates."

Andrea paused, suddenly aware the path he was leading her along. "I don't think they wanted me on the team. They knew…they felt like you feel, sir. I fought to prove myself but I didn't measure up."

"Your callsign is Thunder," Pepper continued, "and your squad designation Dagger Five, is that correct?

"Yes, sir."

"Did your teammates know you as something different?"

Andrea swallowed again, her cheeks once more burning. From the first time she heard the mocking name, she suspected she'd never be accepted by the other operators. The name itself told her they didn't even consider her part of the team, every time she heard it muttered behind her back or snapped to her face. Like Pepper implied, it wasn't normal hazing. It was something more.

Pepper cleared his throat. "Answer the question, corporal."

Andrea gritted her teeth. "Yes, sir, they did."

"And what was the name?"

"…Dagger Zero."

\

* * *

><p>\<p>

A deep red sunset blazed across the evening sky by the time Andrea emerged from the CASOC HQ, fresh air and a warm breeze welcome after hours sitting in the stale hearing room. She walked to a precipice overlooking the central plaza, where flower gardens surrounded a tall fountain and base staff rested on the benches or hurried through on their way to adjoining buildings. Leaning forward on the railing, she tried to let the calming scene dissipate her dark mood but she doubted that all the flowers on Corneria could settle her nerves or even the warmest spring breeze whispering in her ears could drown out the generals' voices.

"I don't think any of us wanted it to end this way."

Startled, Andrea turned and instinctively saluted General Pepper, even if the respect behind it was half-hearted. He casually returned the salute and joined her near the railing.

"What end, sir?" Andrea asked. "Dagger? Me? Gage?"

"Take your pick."

Andrea frowned and looked back out over the gardens. "With all due respect, sir, I've been listening to high brass for hours and I was looking forward to taking a break…get an early start on my suspension."

"It's not a suspension, corporal, it's forced leave. No one on the board thinks you had anything to do with the Feryon disaster, we just need more time to piece it all together with the Fortunian military before taking an official stance. Trust me; I'll ensure you're not buried beneath all the bureaucracy."

"Forgive me if I'm not ready to trust you with the board, sir."

Pepper glanced sideways at her. "I said what I had to. Tell me any of it was wrong."

Andrea stayed quiet.

"I'm on your side more than you think. I don't have a short memory; Fox McCloud is a good friend of mine and I remember all you did to help him and help this system. I just think you bit off more than you could chew, joining Dagger without proper military experience. In time, you still could—"

"Sir, please. The hearing's over. If you don't mind, I'd like to be alone."

The old hound stepped away from the railing "Very well. Just let me say that I know what Gage meant to you. And I know what you meant to him. He called in a very big favor to keep the door open for your transfer to the Rangers while keeping you off SFD selection blacklist. If I were you, I'd spend your leave thinking about how much you truly want to be a part of this army. Be honest with yourself on whether this potential Captain Birse saw in you is really there. Good evening, corporal."

The wolf listened to his footsteps retreat and glanced over her shoulder to watch him go, pondering over what he said. A soldier in the blue slacks and short-sleeved shirt of a base clerk stood at ease near the stairs down to the plaza, as if waiting for Pepper. But after snapping the general a crisp salute, he stepped by him and walked briskly toward Andrea, apparently having just been waiting for Pepper to finish his conversation with her.

"Corporal O'Donnel?"

She sighed through her nose, wondering what fresh hell awaited her now from the directors. "That's me."

The young feline thrust a folded slip of paper toward her. "This came for you during your meeting."

Andrea took it with a nod, sending the clerk on his way, and wrinkled her nose in thought. Any kind of message should have come through her military e-mail; who requested a paper note in this day and age?

All around her was forgotten when she unfolded the note and read the simple message. Her hands shook as she read it again and again. The hearing, the gardens, the breeze…all of it seemed a galaxy away:

_They're alive._

_7453-09-284_

_I'll be expecting you, alone._

_\  
><em>

_**-Chapter 2 coming soon-**  
><em>


	3. Seat of Power

[Author's Note: Thank you to those who have read and reviewed thus far. I hope you continue to enjoy the story as it develops. Thanks for reading and enjoy! ~Foxmerc]

\

CHAPTER 2  
>Seat of Power<br>_Corneria City, Corneria  
>1902 hours<em>

\_  
><em>

_"Thank you for calling Trans-Corneria Travel Agency, this is Lorrie speaking, how may I help you?"_

"I'm sorry, who is this again?"

_"Trans-Corneria Travel, ma'am. May I have your name, please?"_

"…O'Donnell. Andrea O'Donnell."

_"Yes, Ms. O'Donnell, we've been expecting your confirmation call. You've been booked aboard the two-thirty shuttle departing tomorrow from Parkside Interplanetary Starport in Corneria City bound for the Artemis Three Orbital Space Station. Please allow ample time for security and boarding lines."_

"I see…and what do I do when I get to Artemis Three?"

_"It's a large and energetic station, ma'am, there's something for everyone. But I'd personally suggest O'Kara's Pub in the upper markets to nip away any jet lag."_

"I'll keep that in mind. Anything else?"

_"You're all set, Ms. O'Donnell! Have a pleasant trip and thank you for using Trans-Corneria Travel."_

_\  
><em>

* * *

><p><em>The next day<em>  
><em>Parkside Interplanetary Starport, Corneria City<em>  
><em>1342 hours<em>

\_  
><em>

Andrea's gut hadn't settled since she read the note the day before. She'd been there, she barely lived herself; no one could have escaped the Feryon alive. And if they did escape, why hadn't they tried to contact CASOC? For all the evidence against this anonymous claim, something about it felt more than a simple hoax. Not many people knew the specifics of Dagger's fate, certainly not anyone who'd risk their careers for a cruel laugh. And the background check on Trans-Corneria Travel brought up a few red flags, little financial blips that indicated a second party. Nothing definitive, but enough to raise an eyebrow.

But as she stepped from the taxi and gazed up at the massive Parkside Interplanetary Starport main terminal, she knew she had to be there finding out for herself. She couldn't bear any more restless nights knowing Gage wouldn't be there when she awoke, knowing her entire team had died in the blink of an eye and there was nothing she could've done about it. She knew she couldn't be even remotely sure that Dagger still lived, but if any possibility existed, she'd pursue it.

The warm early afternoon sun glittered through the skylights above the main terminal, illuminating the busy starport. People walked briskly to their departure gates or stared up at the flight status holoscreens, with calm, echoing voices on the loudspeaker announcing times and summons throughout the terminal. The deceptively alluring scents of all the fast food places in the food court mingled and wafted through the still air, interrupted only by intermittent whispers of perfume or cologne as Andrea dodged and shuffled through the crowd on her way to the check-in counter.

Taking her place in the back of a long line, Andrea glanced around, her eyes darting from person to person. She felt more invisible than usual, having donned street clothes and a denim jacket rather than her uniform, but the terminal still felt like a stage, and she just a member of the audience, separate and detached from the norm, waiting for something to happen. The fifteen minutes spent in line felt like hours.

"Good afternoon," a young leopardess in the starport's crisp blue uniform greeted her with a manufactured smile. "Reservation or purchase?"

"Reservation. O'Donnell, two N's and two L's."

The receptionist's fingers flew across the keyboard of her console. "Here we are. Andrea? Two-thirty shuttle to Artemis Three. ID, please."

Andrea, relieved and somewhat surprised that the "travel agency's" arrangements had actually been truthful, placed her hand on the counter's palm reader. Satisfied, the console printed out her boarding pass, which the leopardess handed over with another smile.

"Gate seven-C. Please have your boarding pass and photo ID handy at the security checkpoint."

"Thanks." Andrea stepped away and shoved the pass into her jacket pocket. So far so good.

But on her way through the crowd toward the security lines, she felt someone sidle up behind her, too close for just a random passenger in a hurry. Before she could turn her head to get a look, a deep, commanding voice rumbled in her ear:

"It's not safe. Follow me."

He pressed something thin and light into her palm. Andrea looked down at it and saw it to be a cream-colored business card for Trans-Corneria Travel.

"Hurry."

The man strode away, giving Andrea just enough time to spot the back of a black jacket and the striped ochre head of a tiger. Any thought she could have given to following or not had to be reduced to a snap decision before he disappeared into the crowd altogether. With a hesitant frown, she slid through the throng and hurried after him.

After glancing over his shoulder to make sure she was on his tail, the tiger picked up the pace and headed away from the busy main terminal toward to the sparser check-in lines that were usually only open on chaotic weekends. The buzz of the crowd and the echo of the loudspeakers grew dim and distant, replaced by their hurried footsteps on the clean white tiles.

"Where are we going?" Andrea asked.

"Others are searching for you. We need to lie low until it's safe to move."

"What others?"

"Almost at the backup rendezvous. Hold fire." The tiger glanced at her and she realized what he said wasn't meant for her; he wore a comm earpiece in his right ear. "Everything will be explained in time, Corporal O'Donnell."

After a couple more minutes of walking and a few twists away from the concourse, the tiger headed for a pair of restroom doors. He pushed the men's room door open and gestured for her to go in. The freshly-cleaned men's room was empty except for two more men in black coats: a jackal leaning against the bank of sinks and a red avian across from him beside the urinals. Both kept their scrutinizing eyes on her as she walked in and scrutinized them back.

"Get in contact with Cerberus," the tiger ordered his men, letting the door swing shut and coming up behind Andrea. "Tell him we have a shadow." As the avian nodded and put his hand to his own ear comm, the tiger turned his attention to his new guest. "Are you armed?"

Andrea shook her head. "Do I need to be?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Look, I need to know what's going on. Who are you and what the hell is—?"

"No good, sir," the avian interrupted her, scowling at the tiger. "Cerberus reports enemy presence. Too risky. We're ordered to get out now."

The tiger gave a scowl of his own. "What about her?"

The avian's expression didn't change in the slightest as he casually flicked a finger across his throat.

Before the surprised Andrea could react, the tiger had the lapel of her jacket in his large fist and hurled her back against the restroom wall, pain shooting through her spine as her head struck the tile. Nearly losing her balance after a wave of dizziness washed over her, she blinked again and again until her eyes focused on the business end of a handgun, the tiger's eyes behind the iron sights. Her skin broke out in a cold sweat.

"Wait!" she cried, holding her hand up as if to stop him.

The tiger squeezed the trigger.

The gunshot assaulted her ears like an explosion; instinctively, she knew she shouldn't even have heard the full sound if the shot had scrambled her brain like it was supposed to. Only after an unseen force threw her on her side and debris pelted her like buckshot fired from ninety yards did she realize the stunning sound _was_ an explosion. Coughing on the cloud of plaster dust that bellowed through the restroom, Andrea squinted and discerned a man as he stormed through the gaping hole where the door had been, half-crouched with a small submachine gun out at arm's length. Rapid-fired red energy beams tore through the dust, dropping the stunned tiger with a long burst to the chest that continued after he fell, peppering the far wall as the other two goons hit the deck and pulled out their own weapons.

"Stay down!" the newcomer commanded as he fired another burst, the lasers chasing after the two remaining opponents as they returned fire and sought refuge in the stalls.

Andrea stayed on the ground as the man said, but hell if she wouldn't join the fight. Her hand went to the small of her back and she pulled her 47X compact pistol free of the concealed belt holster. Her eyes never leaving the stall she knew the avian had dived into, she grasped the pistol in both hands and brought the fiber optic nights sights on a perfect bead.

The avian popped out to return fire at the wolf's savior, oblivious to Andrea as a threat since she'd claimed to be unarmed. But his and his comrades' overestimation of Andrea's trust proved fatal. A single shot from the wolf herself pierced his skull and dropped him to a sprawl over the toilet like a discarded rag doll.

The jackal got off a few good shots from the stalls across the avian's, forcing Andrea's ally to seek cover near the sinks as he reloaded. Andrea gave him covering fire by shoving off the wall with her foot and firing once she had a good angle. Her wild shots beat the jackal back into a stall. Just as her gun clicked on empty, her ally's submachine gun spewed forth its entire fresh energy mag, a stream of rapid lasers lancing over Andrea's head and chewing through the stall walls like a jackhammer through tissue paper. The gun fell silent, the acrid smell of energy discharge filled the air, and the jackal's laser-riddled body slumped to the floor.

"Clear," Andrea reported out of habit, followed by a choking cough thanks to the throat-stinging medley of plaster dust and gun smoke.

"Not the biggest mess I've seen in a bathroom, but it's in the top five."

The man stepped forward and reached for Andrea, provoking the wolf to reflexively spin around and rise to one knee, handgun up and aimed and the trigger half-pulled. Past the iron sights, she saw the man clearly for the first time: a fellow wolf, lighter in color with bronze-hued highlights, garbed in a vaguely familiar white and dark blue flight suit and a silver jacket. His eyes widened and he dropped his submachine gun to let it dangle by its sling beneath his jacket where it had been concealed.

"Whoa, whoa." He raised his palms before him. "Take it easy, honey. I may not be the best shot, but if I wanted to kill you then I think I could've managed hitting you during that little scuffle."

Andrea slowly eased off the trigger but kept the gun steady. "Who are you?"

"Lieutenant Carter Corrigan of TETRA. My boss sent you the message. We've had some security problems lately so I was sent to keep an eye on you and make sure you got to Artemis Three."

"Good story," Andrea uttered. "Prove it."

"Not exactly the trusting type, are you?" Corrigan gestured to the pistol she'd kept concealed from the three assailants. "Look, this bathroom's out of the way but starport security will be here soon. I need you to come with me. The note said to call Trans-Corneria Travel, and they told you to go to O'Kara's Pub on Artemis Three. Good enough?"

"They knew that too. Even gave me a business card from the place."

Corrigan grimaced. "Then we found our security leak."

"You better have something more convincing than that."

"How about this: I'm not sticking around to answer to the police. I walk, and where I'm going is everything you need to know about Dagger's fate. TETRA won't come to you again."

Andrea pursed her lips. The man either knew exactly what to say or he was telling the truth. But if her life amongst scum, mercenaries, and black ops taught her one thing it was that just because someone fired in the same direction, that didn't make them friends. They could just want to own her, use her, and spit her out once their need for her was done. But even as she considered what TETRA's motivations could be, she knew she had to follow Corrigan. If their motivations led to her discovering her team's fate, she would play along…with one eye always open.

"I guess we're not going to Artemis Three now," Andrea said, returning her pistol to her holster and rising to her feet.

The other wolf relaxed with the gun off him and tugged his lapels to straighten the combat-ruffled jacket. "Nope. Damn shame; O'Kara's has the best beer selection this side of Katina."

"More of a martini girl myself. Where's your way out?"

Corrigan stepped to the mangled emptiness where the door used to be and peeked out into the corridor. "TETRA has a private hangar at this port where my partner's waiting. Assuming we can slip past security, we should be able to just walk right to it without a problem. It'll be some time before they comb through camera logs and get clothing descriptions." His hand went to a sleek white comm device in his right ear. "Blue, you read? Get tower clearance and keep the engine running. We'll be there in five…yeah, looked like 'Claws. Did a little bathroom redecorating with a CX charge and took 'em out…screw you, it was your turn to stay with the ship. Go blow up the barracks latrine when we get home if it'll make you feel better. Out."

Corrigan rolled his eyes and gestured for Andrea to follow him. "Never stops bitching. You hurt or anything? You okay to move quickly?"

"Yeah, I think so," Andrea replied, brushing plaster dust off her jacket and pants so as not to look to conspicuous, though it made little difference. "Lead the way, lieutenant."

"Stay close. And call me Hunter."

\

* * *

><p>\<p>

The turbulence of Corneria's thermosphere behind her, Andrea gazed out the TETRA shuttle's rear window at the slowly receding planet, peaceful against the backdrop of infinite space. Watching her home fall further and further out of reach, she felt a bug of anxiety gnaw at her gut. For the first time since leaving the Vipers and allying with Fox and Gage, she was acting of her own accord, no mercenaries or military units or psychotic brothers watching over her or telling her which decisions were right. She was on her own, chasing a hope.

Last time she did that, she screwed it up.

"We're clear," Hunter informed her, returning from the cockpit door at the fore of the cabin. He slumped into a chair across from her against the starboard hull and kicked up his feet on another. "Our PR moles leaked some forged evidence about a drug deal gone bad. Should hold up. News tonight, forgotten tomorrow."

"Why not just tell the police the truth? It was self-defense."

"We had to get you off-world for your safety. Red tape would've got you killed. Those three chuckleheads wanted you captured alive but they obviously had no problem leaving a corpse if things got too dicey. They'll go for the throat from now on."

"So…what, am I your prisoner now instead?"

Hunter chortled. "You're free to leave whenever you want, but you won't. The boss said so, and he ain't wrong about people that often."

"Beltino Toad," Andrea uttered. The flight suit had seemed familiar, and the mention of TETRA confirmed it. She knew about the private military company from Dagger orientation dossiers: Toad Enterprises Tactical Response and Acquisitions, a privately funded combined arms paramilitary force affiliated with Toad Development Enterprises, the multi-billion credit scientific and engineering development company headed by CEO Beltino Toad, father of Slippy Toad. Though she'd never met the man personally, Fox claimed Beltino to be a man of integrity and a solid ally of Corneria; after all, it was his company that developed the Arwings and kept the specifics of such a dangerous craft under lockdown rather than selling them to the highest bidder. Still…a man didn't rise to such a powerful position without having a an agenda of his own and the sharp intellect to make it a reality.

"So if that makes you my 'rescuer,'" Andrea continued, uttering the word with a bit of disdain, "who were you rescuing me from?"

Hunter scrunched his nose as if swallowing a bad shrimp and furrowed his brow. "Those fine examples of Lylatian goodness were agents of another PMC, a group based out near Venom. You could call them a rival of TETRA. Well, more like arch-nemesis. They're called the Sharpclaws."

"Sharpclaws…" Andrea rolled the name around in her mind. "They were on a watch list of up and comers after the Black Scythe incident last year, but I don't remember them being a significant threat."

"Neither was Andross until he ignited the largest war in the system's history."

"What do they have to do with me? Or Dagger?"

"I'll let the boss get into it more," Hunter responded, interlocking his fingers behind his head and slumping into the chair more. "He uses prettier language anyway, might be more entertaining. Or boring depending on who you are."

From the way he said it, Andrea guessed he was the latter. She leaned back in her chair and looked again at Corneria's blue and green. "You know, I never said thank you for helping me."

"Don't mention it. Bluestar's the one you should thank; he volunteered us for this assignment. Guess I should thank him too since I got to blow up a starport bathroom." The hum of the ship's sub-light engines calmed a bit and and set into a steady murmur; Andrea recognized it as the auto-pilot kicking in. "Speak of the devil."

Moments later, the cockpit hatch opened and Bluestar stepped into the cabin, garbed in the same flight suit and jacket as his partner, but with a pistol drop-leg holster. Andrea's eyes widened after he finished ducking the small hatchway and stood, flashing her a grin on his avian beak, sly eyes beset against blue feathers. The wolf jumped up.

"Falco!" she cried, charging him and wrapping him in an embrace.

"Guess that's two you owe me now," the avian chuckled.

Andrea stepped back and just returned the grin; she wouldn't forget the fight at the relay station during the mercenary war anytime soon.

"Uh, hi there." Hunter waved his hand over his head. "I had a little something to do with it too."

"Shut up, you psychotic pyro." Falco dropped into the chair beside his partner, sending a slug to the shoulder his way, and gestured for Andrea to have a seat.

"Says the jealous crybaby."

"It's okay," Andrea interjected, feeling immediately more relaxed in the presence of a familiar, friendly face, albeit one she hadn't seen in a long time. "I'm a big girl, I can take a loud noise and a little dust."

"Yeah, I guess you'd have to, running with CASOC's top guns these days." His face fell a bit. "How you holding up after all the shit that's been going on with Dagger?"

"Right now, more curious than anything."

"Yeah, sorry about this secrecy bullshit. You know me, I hate that kind of thing. But, Toad gives the orders and I like my paycheck nowadays."

Andrea nodded. She didn't want to pursue the subject and back her friend into a corner, so she changed the subject. "So, what about you? I know Starfox dropped off the radar but I didn't know you took up with TETRA."

Falco paused for a few seconds and finally said, "You know Fox disappeared after the mercenary war ended. He wanted to get away from it all; the press, the spotlight, people in general. Can't say I blame him. Can't say I blame him for not wanting me around either."

Andrea didn't like the way Falco added his last comment, but she didn't say anything. Falco's guilt at what he did to Starfox couldn't be expected to go away within a year, whether Fox forgave him or not. She herself bore witness to the avian redeeming himself, same as Fox, but she imagined his forgiveness of Falco did not bring with it a fully restored trust.

"Anyway, he's off God knows where. Peppy was left in charge of Starfox, but things didn't feel right with just the three of us, especially the awkwardness with me around. Last I heard, he's looking after the Great Fox and living on Macbeth. Slippy went to work for his father as a technician in TETRA when Beltino launched the PMC branch of his company."

"I'm surprised you ended up there," Andrea said. "Slippy almost died when…when you…"

"Yeah, I know," Falco was quick to interrupt. "Actually, he invited me along and Beltino wanted me too. Can't say I understand the forgiveness, but I'm not such an asshole that I don't appreciate it. Guys like me don't get second chances that often."

"Do you think Starfox will ever get back together?"

He hesitated. "I don't know. We'll see what Fox says when he comes back. If he comes back."

Hunter broke in with a laugh. "He better not. I don't want to have to break in a new partner. Come on now, we still got an hour 'til we're there; lets hear something that ain't all gloomy. O'Donnell, let me hear your side of these so-called heroics where Blue here saved you and Captain Birse during the merc war. I've heard the damn story so many times, let me hear it how it really happened without his BS."

Falco scoffed and rolled his eyes, evoking a little chuckle from Andrea. She was glad to tell the story, if only to relive a time that seemed so long ago, a time that brought about victory and happiness.

\

A little over an hour later, Andrea found herself glued to the port window, awed by a massive spire-spined space station gleaming white against the black of space. The station stretched larger than most she'd ever seen, certainly larger than any PMC of mercenary band's mothership. Capital ship hangars ringed five different levels of the spire, with the rest of the structure bristling with anti-aircraft guns and turrets. Half a dozen frigates and cruisers drifted in patrol patterns around the station, each one a sleek, state of the art manifestation of Toad's technical brilliance. Andrea wondered if Andross' forces ever would've set a slimy foot on Cornerian soil had the station been there a decade ago.

"The _Asgard_," Falco said, leaning down beside her to join her gaze. "Home sweet home, headquarters of TETRA. We have a couple other stations near Titania and Aquas, but they're trash freighters compared to this baby. Not too shabby, eh?"

"I saw it on the news once when it finished construction, but…hell of a lot more impressive up close."

"Well, you've seen the Arwings and the Great Fox in action. When Toad creates something, he doesn't settle for anything but the best."

Andrea glanced over her shoulder with a smirk. "Is that admiration I hear from Falco Lombardi's cocky mouth?"

He grunted and shrugged. "He's a suit, I'm a fighter. If he ever tried to aim a gun or fly a combat ship, it'd be as big a disaster as me trying to run TDE's finances. We both have our areas of expertise."

"His apparently pays more."

Falco chuckled and turned away from the window to sit down beside her. "Fine with me that he's stinkin' rich. I'm making more per month now than I did in a year on Starfox."

Hunter chimed in from the cockpit, "How much of that he deserves is up for debate."

"Shut up and fly the ship."

Andrea kept her eyes on the station and its surroundings as they approached one of the lower quadrant docking bays, their shuttle dwarfed by the _Asgard_ itself as well as the cruisers they passed. The muffled chatter of Hunter asking for and gaining clearance to dock soon passed and the shuttle eased its way through the bay's energy barrier, the engines gaining a roar of volume as they left the vacuum of space for the large, enclosed bay with a large illuminated "14" on its two side walls. Once landed, the shuttle's rear hull lowered into a ramp and the smell of energy fumes wafted through the cabin.

Andrea had grown to expect certain mainstays of military space stations: ugly, purely functional structure, cramped corridors, loud noises, and all the charm of military procedure. As Falco and Hunter led her from the bay to the station proper, she could have believed she was in one of Toad's upscale business stations. Most of the walls and floors were made of the clean white plasteel that Toad Development Enterprises itself created and diffused light shone from the ceilings, never straining the eyes. The white motif continued with the uniforms, suits, and coveralls worn by the soldiers and technicians that passed by. A few peeks into various rooms showed lavish office space and work stations as well as sleeping quarters more akin to hotels than barracks.

Most impressively, the center of the spire opened up into a vast commons area, the light and height distance enough to make Andrea feel as if she was outside back on Corneria. Falco informed her that the circular area in the middle, dozens of tables arranged amidst numerous varieties of plants, was the mess hall, but the inglorious term didn't do it justice. The aroma of food made her stomach rumble and she realized she hadn't eaten since the day before.

Eventually, they came to the lobby of Toad's private office, manned by an attractive young silver vixen at a white desk, wearing an equally white suit. She looked up and smiled as they approached.

"Hi, Julie," Hunter greeted. "Is the big man ready for us?"

"I was told to allow you straight in when you arrived," she replied, flashing a smile at Andrea. "Welcome to the _Asgard_, ma'am. A room in our guest suites as been prepared for you and a meal will be sent up in seventeen minutes when your meeting is estimated to end."

"Uh…thank you."

"My pleasure." The vixen tapped a code into a keypad beside her holoscreen and the door behind her slid open, revealing not an office, but a private elevator. "Enjoy your time with us."

Andrea followed the two pilots into the elevator and glanced at her wristwatch as Hunter pressed his thumb against a print scanner. Once the elevator whisked upwards with hardly a sound, she asked, "Why did that woman assume I'd be done in seventeen minutes?"

"She ain't a woman," Falco replied with a little grin. "She's an android. Like ROB, only a crapload more advanced."

Andrea nodded slowly, impressed. The artificial outside was so convincing she hadn't even suspected. "Still…she can't see into the future."

"Knowing Toad, he's probably been looking over your files and records and history pretty thoroughly. Getting to know you before getting to know you, that kind of thing. He has a pretty…incredible instinct in dealing with people. Scary sometimes."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Are you saying he psychoanalyzed me from my files and knows how long I'll want to spend with him?"

Falco and Hunter exchanged a look before the latter uttered, "He's a minute or so off sometimes."

"Just be honest with him," the avian added. "Remember we're on your side here."

Andrea reluctantly nodded. She trusted Falco at least, and that had to be good enough for the time being.

The elevator decelerated and opened to reveal an expansive office, lavishly decorated with red carpet, dark wood meeting tables flanked by leather chairs, and potted plants that had grown tall to nearly touch the high ceiling. Striking paintings adorned the white walls, interspersed at parts by banks of holoscreens that depicted technical layouts of the _Asgard_. The entire back wall was transparent, revealing the impressive scene of TETRA's capital ships on patrol, moving about in space like ponderous fish in the system's largest fish tank. Before that wall, perched atop a slightly raised tier of the floor, was a white desk topped by three holoscreens, Beltino Toad himself sitting in the dark leather chair.

"Come in," he said in a deep, aged voice a far cry from his son's. His fingers flew across his keyboard, his eyes glued to his holoscreens. "Won't be a moment."

Hunter gestured to three expensive looking chairs arranged before the desk and they each sat. Half a minute later, Beltino nudged the keyboard away and stretched his arms with a satisfied groan. He stood and walked around to the front of his desk, swooping up a thin wine glass that had rested by his keyboard. Andrea couldn't immediately identify the amber liquid. As she looked the man up and down, impressed by his white three-piece suit, she jumped as a circular portion of the floor in front of the desk, roughly the size of a manhole, suddenly slid open. A white pole rose from the hole and sprouted a series of segmented parts, like a stem blossoming white, metal petals, until it had formed a surprisingly ergonomic chair, complete with arm rests and a dilated coaster near the right arm for the man's glass. Beltino lowered himself into the chair, placing his glass down, and crossed his right leg over his left.

"I hate talking across a desk," the toad said. "It always seemed to me like a backyard fence, a passive way of separating people and claiming territory. I prefer to speak with nothing between me and my colleagues, and I extend to them the same courtesy." He smiled. "I'm also a touch too lacking in height to effectively peer over my desk and down to these chairs."

Andrea couldn't tell if he meant the comment as a joke, so she split the difference and just returned the smile. "It's nice to meet you. I've met your son before, but I guess you already know that."

"You'd be surprised what I know." Beltino took a sip from his glass and tilted it toward his guest. "Can I offer you a drink, Corporal O'Donnell?"

"No, no thank you." She guessed he didn't offer the others anything because they were still on duty…at least, she knew drinking on the clock in the military would earn some backlash. "Doctor Toad, I—"

"Sherry; my favorite liquid substance in the known universe." He savored the sip and returned the glass to its coaster. "Well, my favorite consumable liquid anyway. I can think of a few propulsion and reaction fuels to which I owe a great deal of personal success. Yes, Corporal O'Donnell, you have many questions, most burning of which is the knowledge regarding your team that I hinted at in my note to you. All answers will come, I assure you, but first I need to address the brief report Sergeant Corrigan sent during your trip. Are you certain of your report's accuracy, sergeant?"

"Yes, sir," Hunter replied.

"Very well. Trans-Corneria Travel is being cleaned out as we speak and our operatives there will be thoroughly questioned. I knew the Sharpclaw would seek to apprehend Corporal O'Donnell, but their newfound efficiency was unexpected…and rather disturbing. Corporal O'Donnell, is there anything you can add from your perspective?"

Andrea thought back to the starport, relived the shootout in as much detail as she could muster. "One of them checked in with their commander. There was a name, a codename I think: Cerberus."

Toad shot a serious glance at both Hunter and Falco, who in turn looked at each other.

"Friend of yours?"

"He's friend to no one," Toad uttered. "And if he's involved in all this, then _she_ is as well. It's fortunate we've brought you to safety before she could be unleashed."

"Who?"

He shook his head and the green face perked up a bit, as if the revelation of Cerberus was just another piece of data to be filed away but not dwelt on. "Don't worry yourself with it. You've enough to process right now without deciphering the Sharpclaws' command structure." He gave a curt nod to his two soldiers. "Lieutenant, sergeant, thank you both for your efforts as always. You're dismissed."

The two pilots stood, Falco patting Andrea's shoulder as he brushed past and headed toward the elevator with his partner. As they departed with the hum of the elevator diminishing into nothing, Andrea suddenly felt a little overwhelmed being alone in the presence of one of the most powerful men in the Lylat system.

"Don't worry, my dear, I don't bite," he said, as if sensing her thoughts. "Unless I need to."

Another joke? Maybe? Andrea just returned the smile again.

"I trust it was nice to see your friend Falco again."

She nodded. "We've been through a fight or two together. I, uh…I was surprised to find him working here."

Toad chuckled deep in his throat. "I admit, I was not keen on accepting Lieutenant Lombardi when my son asked to bring him along. I don't suffer traitors kindly, but much can be said for a man whose dedication to redemption won over his shame. He's become a valuable member of TETRA and has earned his fair share of trust. Besides, TETRA was conceived on the premise of second chances."

Without waiting for his guest to ask what he meant, he waved his hand toward the left wall, where numerous framed photos hung on the wall between the paintings. Andrea recognized plenty of high ranking government and military officials from all over Lylat shaking Beltino's hand. But largest and most prominently displayed was a shot of the Great Fox, so young that it lacked any paint or adornments. A very excited looking and considerably younger Beltino stood with James McCloud, arms around each others' shoulders.

"James asked me to join Starfox, you know," Beltino said, a bit of melancholy in his voice, "acting in much the same capacity as my son did for the younger McCloud. It wasn't fear that held me back. Oh, no, I yearned, ached, for excitement, desired to put my own technology to good by my own hand. But TDE was like a young prodigy in those days; full of promise and potential, yet still susceptible to missteps and ill fortune. I had to accept my place at the helm, watching and working for the good of Lylat rather than being on the front lines myself. It wasn't like today where my board of directors can run TDE without my constant presence."

"And with TETRA," Andrea said, "you get to be more hands-on with Lylat. You get to protect what you believe in by your own rules rather than creating the tech and hoping others can."

The toad smiled and reluctantly took his gaze away from the picture. "Am I really as transparent as all that?"

"No. I just know the feeling."

Beltino sipped again from his glass. "I'm well aware of your own brush with a second chance. It seemed to go rather well during the mercenary war, then…slipped away when you donned the patch of Dagger."

Andrea felt tightness creep into her chest and she swallowed with some effort. "Doctor Toad, I've just had an evaluation. I don't need another to—"

"No one is here to criticize you, corporal. Quite the contrary. The Cornerian Army Special Operations Command may be content to brush you aside while they conduct their investigation, but I am not. Like my young TDE, your potential is unmistakable, but your missteps are many. Though I'd hesitate to call you a prodigy."

Andrea grinned, finally certain of a joke. "I don't claim to be one, sir."

"Good; that means we don't have to first compete with an entrenched ego." Beltino raised his glass as if toasting a first step before taking a sip. "I'll make you a deal, Corporal O'Donnell. You allow me to make my case for why you should be my guest aboard the _Asgard_. Then you may choose to leave, or to stay and make use of TETRA's support. If you choose to leave, I will still provide all information in my possession relating to Dagger's current status and wish you good luck. Deal?"

The wolf rolled the proposal around in her head and furrowed her brow. "I don't think it's necessary to make your case. Why would I not want to stay and accept your help?"

"Please. Humor me."

She shrugged and gestured for him to continue.

Toad leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his lap. "In the months following the mercenary war, I put a stern eye to a truth that has always lurked beneath Lylat's surface: mercenaries, pirates, and other outlaws had gained too much of a foothold since the fall of Andross. Unchecked, they posed enough of a threat that when a charismatic man from the former Black Scythe put his mind to it, they became an army. That cannot be allowed to happen again, both for the sake of my company and its many stations, offices, and employees across the system, and for all free people of Lylat. Thus, I looked at my seventh research station still under construction at the time, the _Asgard_, and reimagined it as a military base of operations. I looked at the numerous military-commissioned vehicles and ships in my factories and kept many for myself. I met with officers and distinguished soldiers from all over and told them of my plan for TETRA. I humbly met with every governing body in Lylat's planetary alliance and assured them that my intentions were to amass and command a defensive, guardian force rather than a private armada and army. While I'm sure TETRA is watched very closely, my history serving Corneria and my continued support has earned me a level of trust."

Andrea nodded, if only to show she was keeping up.

"In less than a year, TETRA has completed numerous contracts, both private and military, and has attracted elite soldiers into its ranks. We also make it our business to know other PMCs and mercenary groups out and about in Lylat. Some time ago, a certain group caught our eye: Sharpclaw Security Applications. Much like TETRA, the Sharpclaw found the vacuum of power after the mercenary war a fertile ground to grow their business. Now, they rival TETRA in size and funding, though it remains a mystery where the latter is coming from. They hire from the gutters of pirate havens and struggling mercenary enclaves, taking any bloodthirsty fighter with a pulse. They take contracts that deal in weapons, drugs, and slavery, whatever boosts their notoriety…and they continue to grow in power. SSA has become TETRA's top concern; we and the Sharpclaw have butted heads on many occasions."

"Why are you telling me this?" Andrea asked. "Why did they attack me?"

"I'm telling you this because you need to know your foe," Toad sipped from his glass to wet his throat. "They hijacked the _Feryon_. And they now hold your teammates captive. They wanted to finish the job."

She blinked and let the his words sink in, trying to remember any part of her limited action on the _Feryon_ that supported his claim. "But…how? The ship exploded, no escape pods or shuttles left it."

"That's for another meeting. All I need tell you right now is that I strongly believe your team to be alive. I believed it enough to bring you here and devote resources to it."

"Why haven't you told CASOC?"

Toad chuckled deep in his throat. "SSA has eyes everywhere and fingers in many pockets. Your near-execution is proof of that. I feel that involving the military would further jeopardize Dagger's tenuous survival, since the Sharpclaw would likely find out. Right now, our strength is the fact that the Sharpclaw do not suspect we know of Dagger's survival. Like you in the starport, should they find us sniffing too closely, I fear Dagger will be done away with."

"I still don't understand. Why do you care about one missing special forces team so much?"

Toad raised a finger to halt her. "Please, corporal, I asked only to make my case. Questions and answers reveal themselves in due time. What do you think about our deal? Do you wish to take what information I have and do what you will with it? Or do you wish to work for me and be a part of TETRA for the duration of your forced leave, spearheading a task force devoted to finding Dagger? You will be held to our rules and command, but you will have TETRA's resources at your disposal."

Andrea took a deep breath through her nose and stared back at the relaxed elderly toad, trying to quell all the questions racing through her mind and focus on the decision. If Beltino was right, taking the information to CASOC would endanger her teammates. Could he be lying? Sure. But even if he was, she wasn't even sure CASOC would act. If the risk was too great or the intelligence too sketchy or the politics too fragile, they might ignore it altogether. Gage and all of Dagger knew and accepted the inherent risk of black operations, that backup or rescue might never come. Andrea had accepted it for herself as well. But she didn't accept inaction as long as she was still breathing. And even if CASOC did act, she could be sure it wouldn't involve her.

"Still seems like a pretty easy answer," Andrea said.

"Is it?"

She fidgeted in her chair, not sure what he was getting at. The careful proposal, the deals…why all of it when all he had to do was offer to help find her team? But as she opened her mouth to answer, she realized where his doubt stemmed. For the first time since her violent retirement from the Viper's Kiss, she would be joining, essentially, a mercenary group. Most every bad memory that continued to haunt her could be traced to her time with mercenaries, from Starwolf to the Vipers. Her dreams of joining Dagger, every drop of blood and sweat she shed to get there, all of it was to leave the world of mercenaries behind. And now she'd be entering that world again, having failed at her dream.

"I hate mercenaries," she found herself uttering, her words thick. "I hate anyone who kills for nothing more than money or gain. I hate that whole world and every dirty thing about it. I was born into it and I had to climb through hell to get out of it. One of the first things Gage and I saw eye to eye on was our hatred of mercenaries. And frankly, I'm not convinced TETRA is any better than the rest out there, no matter how pretty you describe it or how many clean white walls cover it." She paused, remembering Falco's words in the elevator. "You already knew all that, didn't you?"

"I suspected." He gave a mild shrug. "But it doesn't change the deal I offered."

Andrea felt like a small burden had been alleviated from her chest, something she felt since first seeing the _Asgard_ but was too entranced by Dagger's possible survival to consider. She took another deep breath and thought through it again. "I trust your son. And I trust Falco and Fox, and they both had nothing but good to say about you since I knew them. If this were anyone else, I'd walk. So…for the moment, my answer is yes, I'll work with you. But!" she looked him in the eye. "Only so long as this is clear. I'm not a gun for hire. I'm here for Dagger, and my allegiance still lies with them. I won't do anything for you that goes against Dagger's rules of engagement."

Beltino picked up his sherry glass and lightly spun the stem back and forth between his thumb and forefinger, his eyes still locked with hers. After a few moments, he smiled and raised the glass in another informal toast.

"Welcome to TETRA."

The comm on his desk beeped and Julie's voice informed him that his guest's meal was ready in her room, seventeen minutes after she'd stepped into his office.

\

**_-Chapter 3 coming soon-_**


	4. Shadowboxing

[Author's Note: Apologies for the delay in updating. I've just finished moving into a new place and it was a pretty taxing process. But all's settled in and I'm back on track. Thanks for reading and enjoy! ~Foxmerc]

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CHAPTER 3  
>Shadowboxing<br>_TETRA Prime Station Asgard, Cornerian Orbit  
>1621 hours Corneria City time<em>

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"Just one more. Ready? Let's see. Richter Arms PX7."

The stopwatch in his hand clicked.

Andrea lowered her unblinking gaze to the table before her, where a mess of handgun internals had been scattered and intermixed all over the surface, enough to build ten specific weapons. The moment the name left the instructor's lips, Andrea had the exploded diagram in her mind. Her hands flew over the carpet of mechanical bits, fingers recognizing certain contours of the manufacturer's machining, eyes picking out familiar bits and memorizing them for their respective stages. First came the grip frame, followed by rapid clicking as she secured the magazine catch and trigger assembly.

_Capacitor…_

_ Wiring tube…_

_ Inner barrel…outer barrel…_

_ Slide…_

_ Safety…_

Finally, Andrea slapped in the energy clip and aimed the pistol downrange, signaling the instructor to release the holographic targets. Four blue generic soldier mockups appeared sixty feet away, each taking up an aggressive stance. Andrea double-tapped each one in rapid succession, red energy beams piercing and marking the enemies…except the far left soldier, which she eliminated with a single shot to the head.

Letting out her breath, Andrea ejected the clip and placed the pistol down on the table. "Clear."

Specialist Lee stopped the watch and gave the same impressed expression he'd been flashing all morning. The young brown hare jotted down the results on his datapad and slipped the watch into the pocket of his TDE issue white overcoat. His taps and clicks echoed in the empty shooting range, irritating Andrea's already taxed nerves thanks to hours of tests and evaluations.

"Out of curiosity," Lee asked, "why did you only shoot the last target in the head?"

The wolf rubbed her tired eyes. "He's wearing Cornerian standard Mark VI body armor. The PX7's energy output is a third of a grade below effective. It'd give him an annoying burn, but it wouldn't penetrate the armor. The other three are wearing Mark IVs; you can tell by the third strap on the sides and the slightly lower neck cut. The PX7's shots would penetrate and scramble an organ or two while they're at it."

"Well, I'll be damned. Even I missed that little sucker punch my first time."

Andrea looked to the range door and smiled at the sight of Falco moseying his way in. "Hey, you're just in time. I'm about to build another pistol so I can shoot myself."

Lee sighed in exasperation, eyes still on his datapad. "Standard placement and initiation evaluations, Corporal O'Donnell. These things take time."

Falco chuckled. "I bet she hasn't complained as much as most grunts around here."

The hare finally looked up and gave the avian a sardonic smile. "You're still the standard to which all whiners are compared, Lombardi."

"Yeah, well, you're off the hook for now. I'll take her from here."

"There's more?" Andrea groaned. "I've been all over this damn station for six hours being poked, prodded, studied, tested…what's the point?"

Lee cleared his throat. "Standard placement and—"

"Yeah, we get it, Lee," Falco interrupted. "Give me the highlights. How'd she do?"

The specialist consulted his datapad again, brow rising as he again reviewed the results. "No anomalous health readings. Excellent physical shape. Vehicle identification in all conditions, perfect. Marksmanship with varied Lylatian weapons, perfect. Tactical interpretation exam, perfect. She cleared the killhouse simulation in thiry-five point five seconds, hostage scenario in forty-three point two. And she just passed the pistol reassembly and target acquisition course with an exemplary rating. Do me a favor; if bad guys ever take over the Evaluation Services branch, sit it out and send her to rescue us."

Andrea scoffed and rolled her eyes, hoping to deflect the praise. Obviously he hadn't read her file. "Maybe I just test well."

"I shouldn't be surprised. Doctor Toad told me she'd most likely blow the tests away. As proud as I am of my evaluation designs, they're child's play compared to the requirements for a team such as Dagger."

"I'd like to reiterate me previous 'what's the point?'" the wolf uttered.

"You're off Eval's clock now," Falco replied. "I'm taking you over for some playtime with Toad's personal tests. Should be a bit more fun."

"It was a pleasure, Corporal O'Donnell," Lee said, shaking her hand. "I'll compile this report and send it right over to Doctor Toad."

As he left the range, Andrea again rubbed her eyes and sighed through her nose. "You know…if bad guys ever do take over Evaluation Services, they can have it."

Falco led the way from the range through the Asgard's white corridors. During her impromptu tour throughout the day being taken from one test to another, Andrea noticed that the station's corridor and lift grid had been laid out more thoughtfully than the typical military station; less of a winding maze that took dozens of wrong turns to grow used to and more of a grid of concentric circles, intersected with straight hallways. She'd already become rather confident she could find her way back to her quarters on the other end of the station with ease.

"So," Andrea hesitantly said after a few minutes of silent walking. "You gonna ask me?"

"Eh?" Falco eyed her. "What, you need a prom date or something?"

"I saw your face when Lee started reading off my little report card. Might as well get it all out in the open."

He glanced at her sideways again. "You sure? Ain't my business if you don't want it to be."

"I'm sure."

"Okay, here goes." He took a deep breath. "Are those real? I think they are, but Hunter thinks they're too—"

"Falco, come on," Andrea scowled, shoving him in the shoulder.

"Alright, alright." The avian paused and rolled his tongue around his beak. After a minute, he spoke up. "Your mission reports are classified but Toad's got enough of a network to know the basics. He gave me a quick rundown before we went off to meet you on Corneria. So I guess the easiest way to ask is…how did you blow it so bad with Dagger? I feel like an asshole for saying it, but I figured Gage got you in. I didn't think you'd do half as well at Lee's day of fun and games."

Andrea slowly nodded. If there was one thing she could always count on from Falco, it was blunt honesty. "Truth is, Gage did get me in. I took to soldiering just fine, I just…didn't have what the guys in charge were looking for. Some spark I didn't ignite, some extra mile I didn't go, I don't know."

"I don't get it."

She thought for a moment of how to put the concept into words. "You've been around, you've seen plenty of mercenaries. We both have. But Fox McCloud, he's one of a kind, right? A great pilot, sure. But you've beat him in training back in the old days, right? You won races or dogfight sims. So have other pilots."

"Damn straight."

"So he's a great pilot, but he's not infallible. Do you think that even the best pilot in the snazziest Arwing could have done what he did during the Lylat War if it was all just for the money? He had the skill to be a great mercenary pilot, but it's something else about him that made him…_Fox McCloud_. It was something about him and all of you that made Starfox mean more than just another mercenary group."

Falco started to nod. "Okay…"

"Well, that's what Dagger's like. You can be the greatest marksman or toughest soldier Lylat's ever seen, but it takes something else, something deeper, to make it in Dagger. Something I don't have."

"What, you mean like passion or dedication or meaning or all that stuff? A year ago, we couldn't shut you up about Dagger and the whole superhero thing. If anyone had the drive to make it, it was you."

Andrea shrugged. "I guess I was in love with the idea. The reality was more than I could handle."

Falco scoffed. "I don't buy it. I fought next to you even before you got all that fancy CASOC training; I saw what you could do. And I saw how much you wanted to take it all the way to Dagger."

"Yeah, but—"

"Look," he interjected. "I don't got the answers. You want theories and fancy talk, go talk to Toad. All I know is you're here and you ain't giving up on your team, and that counts for something. Keep your head in the present; for seasoned merc killers like us, this should feel like the good old days."

"The good old days," Andrea echoed, a half grin pulling at the corner of her muzzle. "You mean back when a reinvigorated Venomian black ops team managed to coerce the system's deadliest warriors into hunting down Fox, and by extension me and Gage, while they used the distraction to attempt a crippling blow to the Lylatian alliance's military network?"

"Makes you want to sit back with a beer and just smile, doesn't it?"

Andrea chuckled. A jab came to mind about how he'd sat out most of the conflict, but thought better of alluding to the short lapse in character that branded him a traitor to Starfox, even if it had long been resolved. He put on a strong face about it, maybe even joked about it once or twice, but she wondered if he'd ever truly made peace with it. Falco may have been bluntly honest with people, but she doubted he was the same way with himself.

As they passed a high level security checkpoint and entered an area Andrea hadn't yet seen, Falco warned her, "Just to let you know, the boss himself will be running this one. Don't over think it and don't be pissed if you flunk it. Everyone does."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Uh, okay then. Any other tips?"

"Yeah. Try to land at least one blow. I've got fifty creds on it in the pool."

"Great. Thanks. What, is this a fight or something?"

"Sorry, not allowed to talk about it. We all gotta pay our dues to that lily-white bitch." The two at last approached a silver door marked "Arena C." Falco hit the activation button and made a sweeping gesture for her to go ahead in. "Good luck. I'll have a couple aspirin waiting for you."

Andrea shot him a sarcastic smirk and socked him in the gut as she passed. "Leave the pep talks to Lee."

The "arena" lived up to its name, reminding her of the dojo on the Great Fox where she first met – and got walloped by – Gage. Only about ten times bigger, roughly the size of a gymnasium, with a matted floor and padded walls, all awash in bright light, and all of the standard TDE white. In the center of the arena stood a bleach-white vixen garbed in loose blue pants and a matching long sleeved blue shirt, her stance stone still and her eyes staring straight ahead at nothing. A green lizard in the overcoat of a specialist stood close as if whispering in her ear, his fingers tweaking and pulling at the side of her neck.

"You two want some privacy?" Andrea said to get their attention, causing the lizard to twitch in surprise.

_"Ah, welcome, Corporal O'Donnell."_

It was her turn to twitch as a loud voice rumbled through the arena from an intercom speaker. Andrea looked around and found a large window near the ceiling against the right wall, at least fifty feet up. Beltino and a handful of other TETRA personnel sat at desks with half a dozen holoscreens glowing, owning a clear view of the arena from their overwatch. Beltino leaned forward to speak into a comm unit on his desk.

_"I trust all went well today? I'm sure someone with your training found those tests rather tedious."_

"I held my own according to Lee," she responded loudly, hoping he could hear her without her having to activate anything on her end. "He's sending his report soon."

_"Good, good. Well, I believe you may find a bit of a challenge in Lucy here."_

Andrea glanced back at the vixen and did a double-take, realizing she hadn't moved at all. The lizard still tweaked at her neck with nearly inaudible clicking. The wolf furrowed her brow, piecing it together. "A synthetic?"

_"Indeed. Holographic sparring partners are unfeasible due to their intangibility and one would be hard pressed to hire a martial artist who knows as many styles as we can program in Lucy here, not to mention she can stand up to more physical punishment. Did you know it's actually more cost effective to build one of her model than pay a two year salary for an independent trainer? Not even taking quarters and food into account."_

"Never did like number crunching myself, sir. So I'm supposed to spar with her? It?"

_"In a word, yes. However, we're using Lucy today for one other reason. She has a certain…gift."_

The lizard finished whatever he'd been tinkering with on the android and closed the panel on her neck. He made his way toward Andrea, fishing out of his pocket a small case like a jewelry box. Opening it, he produced a metallic tab the size of a jacket button.

"I need you to just stand still for me, corporal," the specialist said, taking the tab between his thumb and forefinger and sidling up to her like he was about to dig through her neck also. "This may pinch a bit."

Andrea kept her head still and felt a bit of cold pressure as the lizard pushed the tab against her left temple. But just as was about to let out her breath, a jolt of blinding pain shot through the side of her head, as if a searing needle had pierced her vein. She yelped and clutched at her head, gritting her teeth against a string of muffled curses.

_"That's the worst of it, Corporal O'Donnell. The pain will subside in a few seconds."_

Andrea massaged the area around her temple with a groan of pain, more than a little disturbed that the tab was now affixed to her skin. As promised, the burning began to dissipate, leaving only a slight throb. "Hell of a pinch."

_"Rest assured there is no damage done and the device is easily removed. Thank you, doctor, that will be all."_

The lizard exited through the arena door, leaving Andrea alone with the inactive synthetic.

_"Please make yourself comfortably prepared for melee combat, but keep your footwear on."_

Andrea rolled her shoulders, cracked her knuckles, and began to stretch her arms and legs. Back in the old days she'd take off her boots, but she'd trained the past year with them on to grow accustomed to the weight, so at least that condition wouldn't throw her off. The TETRA jumpsuit she'd been given was comfortable enough, so she settled for sliding the light jacket off, tossing it to the side, and rolling up her sleeves a bit. "I'm fine like this. What's this thing on my head supposed to do?"

_"You'll be informed after the trial. Try your best not to think about it; treat it like any other harmless medical monitor."_

"Gloves? Pads?"

_"Conditions must replicate real conflict as much as possible. Lucy will strike at fifty percent strength, though don't feel the need to go easy yourself. You won't hurt her. In fact, the more you treat this is a real fight, the better."_

Andrea took a couple deep breaths and hopped up and down, trying to shake away the mental cobwebs of the whole morning. As she did so, she remembered that the last time she'd sparred was only a few days before the Feryon mission, with Gage. Thinking of him brought a heavy feeling to her gut, something she couldn't afford at that moment. She pushed it away, reminding herself she was doing this for him and the rest of her team.

"I'm ready."

As she took up her stance a few paces before the dead-eyed android, her skin crawled from the eerily neutral expression. The non-dyed synthetic fur only added to the creepy feeling, making Lucy seem halfway between robot and living. But as the unsettling eyes blinked and the fabricated muscles twitched, Andrea lowered herself into a ready stance and focused on it as just an opponent.

_"Have at it, corporal."_

Lucy extended one leg and crouched back slightly, hands up and fingers loose. Andrea recognized the posture as that of Katinian Shan, a fluid and precise art usually reserved for exhibitions or stylish movies. She herself kept her hands relaxed but ready at her beltline, turned sideways against the synthetic. An official name existed somewhere for the martial arts taught to Cornerian special forces, but it was simply a blending of many Lylatian forms, utilizing quick incapacitating moves, disarms, and environmental awareness and manipulation. Whatever CASOC wanted to call it, her teammate Ley had dubbed it "SOC Fu."

Knowing she could be there all day trying to wait out a synthetic, Andrea struck first, hopping forward with back foot and bringing it around for a spinning kick to the head. Figuring it would be dodged, she followed up with a one-two to the abdomen and muzzle, both easily blocked, the vixen coolly stepping back to keep her balance as her forearms parried the blows, that neutral expression never flinching.

Andrea used the block to her advantage, clenching her fingers around the vixen's wrist and pulling the arm behind as she slipped around her. The next step would've been to kick out the wobbly victim's knees…if the vixen hadn't countered the grapple the moment it was attempted. She spun along with her arm as if being twirled on a dance floor and struck Andrea's chest with her palm, knocking the wind out of her before following up with an elbow across her face. The wolf barely had time to appreciate how much "fifty percent strength" actually hurt before a sweeping kick sent her hard onto her back.

With a groan, Andrea rubbed her throbbing muzzle and kept her eyes on the vixen as she calmly stepped back a few paces and returned the stare, waiting.

_"Good, good. Marvelous, isn't she?"_

"Oh, yeah, fascinating," Andrea muttered, climbing to her feet and shaking off the rough blow. "Why don't you come have fun with her and I'll watch you?"

_"Come now, corporal. You jest, but I know that setback has only strengthened your resolve to defeat her."_

She couldn't argue with that. Potential strategies coursed through her mind, any remnants of the morning's tedium gone and engulfed in a rush of adrenaline. Without hesitation, she attacked again. Ever punch she threw was blocked or swept away, every kick countered before her knee could even rise above her waist. After only a five second melee, Lucy caught Andrea's wrist in mid-punch and twisted it hard, throwing the wolf off balance with a hiss of pain through clenched teeth. Another kick to the legs brought her down to the mat for a second time.

_"You're doing fine. But try not to approach this fight with such calculation and adherence to your training. Stop the mind and let instinct take over. Harbor a brief thought of your motivation then think of it no more."_

As she pushed herself to her feet again, pain shooting up her left forearm, her face contorted at the echoing words. What the hell was he talking about? It was all she could do to keep from being overly irritated by the damn robot making a fool of her in front of half a dozen onlookers, including the man who went out of his way to hire her on. Not exactly doing the Dagger name justice.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm her annoyance, she faced the synthetic once more and took up her stance. Figuring Toad's advice was worth a shot since her own approach hadn't been working, she gave a brief thought to Gage and her teammates and did her best to wipe her mind clean. And she stood her ground, waiting for Lucy to make the first move.

And waiting…

And whether by Toad's command or her own programming, Lucy at last attacked.

Her assault was clear, her style predictable and almost too simple to be true. With a jolt of confidence that she'd finally take the bitch down, Andrea lowered herself and waited, picturing the grab and throw, muscles steeled in anticipation.

Lucy closed in and began her spin, her leg primed to deliver a crushing kick. But Andrea's block would be there, ready to turn it on her and give her a taste of mat for a change.

But the kick never came.

The synthetic skirted her right leg to the side and used the momentum of the spin to leap up and around the attempted block. Her knee came around in the air and struck the back of Andrea's head. She alighted on the ground softly as a feather as the wolf fell to her hands and knees.

"Dammit!" Andrea spat with a punch to the mat, her loud curse causing her throbbing head to pound further. She didn't care if her annoyance showed through anymore. "That was impossible!"

_"What do you mean?" _Toad asked, calm as ever, her sound beating seemingly unsurprising.

Andrea laughed bitterly as she slowly made her way to her feet, careful to not let her battered head send her for a dizzy loop. "There's no way she saw that block coming, definitely not with enough time to think of that little move and pull it off. What is all this? I'm here to find my team, not test drive your damn robots."

_"I admit, Lucy has an unfair advantage. I couldn't tell you from the start since knowing would have affected your natural performance."_

Andrea kept an eye on the vixen, half ready to defend herself though it seemed to be idle. "Know what?"

_"Lucy's neural processor is receiving and analyzing a constant data stream from the cerebral translator, or CT, which is processing and transmitting the bioelectric signals that originate from your pre-frontal cortex and manipulate certain aspects of your nervous system. To put it in simple terms, Lucy can read your mind, or at least your physical intentions. In combat, she will always be one step ahead of you."_

Andrea's fingers unconsciously rose to her left temple and traced the surface of the small metal circle that the lizard had put there. The "CT."

_"If it makes you feel better, most every member of TETRA's combat personnel has been put through this test. No one has ever successfully struck Lucy. Apparently, even one who has survived Dagger training cannot."_

Despite the intercom's distortion, Andrea could sense a hint of disappointment in the toad's last statement. "Seems like a pretty useless training android. Opponents should be fallible; teaching your men to overestimate the enemy is just as dangerous as underestimating them."

_"Lucy is not meant to be defeated, corporal. She is designed to teach clarity of mind, instinctive union with one's training, and most of all, control; control of a layer of one's self that is rarely explored, much less tamed."_

"That's TETRA's combat philosophy?"

_"No; we train much in the tradition of standard militaries. Lucy is more…specialized; available for those who seek the practice, but mostly her function is to give me a good idea of a new recruit's abilities. As well as how they cope with defeat."_

Andrea's lip curled as she meandered toward the stone still vixen and walked around it, looking it up and down. She feared she knew the answer before she asked. "So how did I do on that part?"

_"Not abnormal. What I learned of your ability and mindset was worth a few knocks on the head, I believe. You're welcome to continue sparring with Lucy; your next appointment is not scheduled for another hour."_

She looked up to the booth where Toad sat, his eyes meeting hers. She figured that was about as straight an answer as he would give her. Whatever he was learning about her "ability and mindset," she was learning about him in turn; after speaking with him only twice, she found herself expecting half-answers and elusive speech, responses that sounded full on the surface but truly answered nothing. After going three painful rounds with an android that could read her mind, Toad had somehow explained the purpose of the exercise yet revealed little to nothing as to why he had such an interest.

And Andrea was sure he intended exactly that.

"I'm done," she said flatly, her old familiar mistrust of everything mercenary creeping back into her gut and writhing about, her skin crawling with vulnerability. "Get this thing out of my head."

_ "Very well."_

The lizard technician entered and first shut down Lucy fully before seeing to Andrea. The CT came away much less painfully than it had been inserted, leaving behind a reliving sort of tingle. She reflexively rubbed the spot and felt only fur, not a trace of blood or damage. With a final glance up at the booth to find Toad gone, she strode from the arena, breezing by Falco just outside the door.

"Hey," he greeted, shoving off from the wall he'd been leaning on and jogging a few steps to catch up to her. "Am I a richer man?"

"Sorry," Andrea grumbled. "Why'd you wait for me?"

"I figured it'd be pretty quick, one way or another. It usually is. Damn, even with your Dagger training I still got two to one odds on the bet. Not even close?"

"Not even close."

He cocked an eyebrow at her after her curt response. "You mad about something? I told you not to get upset; no one's ever hit Lucy. Well…I did, but she was shut down. Smug bitch didn't see that one coming. Toad didn't count it."

Andrea stopped in her tracks and folded her arms over her chest, brow frozen in ridged anger. "Doesn't Beltino ever piss you off? So many words, so few answers. I'm jumping through his 'evaluation' hoops so I can get to finding my team and he puts me through his little Zen lesson without so much as a straight answer why. And that's _after _he puts a damn mind-reading chip on my head without telling me what it does."

Falco shrugged. "Yeah, that's Toad for ya. No one around here understands half of what he does, but he's that sort of guy. He's a genius and he's got the money to screw around with his ideas. Some of them work, like the Arwing. Some don't…like the walking Arwing. God, you should've seen that thing, it—"

"Look, you know I don't want to be here. Me and mercenaries in general had a pretty violent falling out. I don't trust him. I definitely don't trust him enough to be wearing his experimental tech and scrutinized without being told why. I'm done being used by mercenaries, no matter how rich, smart, or well dressed they are."

"I know. I get it. But didn't you ever get orders in the army you didn't like? Didn't you go through some shit in training that seemed worthless? I sure as hell did; I still don't know why the hell I learned half the things I did back in the Academy."

"Sure." Andrea replied, folding her arms over her chest. "So what?"

"So…what's the difference?"

"The difference? The difference is that we all wore the same flag on our arms. We all had the same goal, swore the same oath. Believe it or not, that was a new experience for me, and a satisfying one." She pointed back in the general direction of the arena. "Here, he's the one pulling the strings for his own ends, and something tells me he isn't helping me find my team due to his respect of 'no man left behind' honor."

"You don't have to tell me. Look who you're talking to. But you think after spending a decade with Starfox I'd fall in with the first flashy group that'd have me?"

Andrea paused, letting out a breath through her nose. She began walking again, most of the anger gone from her stride. "You're saying you trust him?"

"I'm saying he built the ship I called home for a long time, and the fighter I kicked Venomian ass in. Hell, if it wasn't for his tech, that Cornerian flag on your arm and that oath you love might not be around. He could've sold out to Andross; that seemed the sure bet after the initial blitz."

"Things change. He sure got TETRA up and running fast after we ended the mercenary war. Lots of power for the taking. And you know what they say about absolute power."

Falco shrugged. "Maybe. But I also know there are bigger, badder threats out there. Like the Sharpclaw. I've seen what they can do and who they deal with."

A light chuckle escaped the wolf's throat. "Is that your subtle way of reminding me I still need TETRA to help me find Dagger?"

"No. I'm saying not every merc group out there is like the Vipers." He paused. "Or Starwolf."

Andrea remained silent.

"Like you said, things change. You don't have to trust TETRA, but you don't have to feel unsafe here. They're good guys. And I got your back, no matter what."

She just nodded. Silence fell as the two continued walking, Andrea realizing she'd been unwittingly making her way toward the central atrium and the mess hall nestled in its space-grown shrubbery and auto-pumped brooks. She hadn't eaten since her quick morning bite and the sparring worked up a good thirst.

After a few minutes, they arrived at a bank of elevator doors and Andrea hit the call button. She glanced at Falco and asked, "I have to meet the weapons master in forty minutes or so. Where do I go for that?"

The avian grunted. "Still gonna finish out the evaluations, huh?

"I said I would." The cylindrical glass elevator arrived with a pleasant tone. She stepped inside alone. "Not coming?"

"Nah, gotta help Hunter with a couple mission reports up on the boring deck. The guy you're looking for is Ansel Kurtz; Arena Delta-Four on Deck D."

"Can I look forward to a beating from him also?"

He chuckled. "Not unless you catch him in a bad mood. Don't expect a Zen talk either, he's about as chatty as Lucy. And…he's not the Zen type." Falco touched his forehead in a lazy farewell salute. "I'll catch up with you later."

As he turned away and the elevator doors started to close, Andrea stuck her hand out to stop them. "Hey, wait!"

He halted and looked back over his shoulder.

"Whatever I say about Toad or TETRA, you know I trust you, right?"

Falco half-grinned. "It's not something I'd easily forget."

He continued down the corridor and Andrea let the door slide shut.

\

* * *

><p><em>TETRA STR Station T4<br>0208 hours local_

\

"What the hell did you think you were doing?"

The venomous reproach echoed through the corridors of TETRA Science and Technological Research Station T4, made louder by the lack of activity in the late night hours. But it still reached the ears of Slippy Toad as he hurried through the darkened laboratories toward the commotion, rubbing sleep from his eyes, robe loosely flowing behind him. Though the communication that had roused him only stated there was an "incident" in the isolation wing without naming names, he realized who the voice belonged to and groaned. He shouldn't have been surprised.

The rapid, irritated speech of Doctor Robert Wyatt grew louder and more comprehensible as Slippy approached the only fully lit laboratory in the area. The badger himself stood near the isolation chamber's console bank with a lab coat over his blue pajamas, berating a young assistant like a bitter old researcher despite him only being barely into his thirties. The canine assistant – new guy in the wing, Slippy couldn't recall the name – stood with his head lowered and his eyes wide with fear before the infamous wrath of Doctor Wyatt.

"It was simple!" Wyatt growled in the assistant's face. "It was a simple, easy task! Monitor the power fluctuation levels and purge the system if they reach point-nine-six. Now, thanks to your brilliant initiative, every order I give from here on has to come with the addendum, 'oh, and don't blow up the hemisphere of Titania we happen to be standing on.'"

The canine swallowed. "Doctor, I—"

"See, I'm usually too busy doing all the stuff around here that actually matters to worry about the little things you people are supposed to be seeing to. When I give simple instructions that even a half-eaten bratwurst can accomplish, I don't expect to have to wake up and fix catastrophic problems. That's sleep I lose. Then my work suffers…you know, the important work I just mentioned."

"Doctor, I just let it spike for a couple minutes. The readings were pouring in; I thought I could take notes and purge the system well before it—"

"It's funny, on my way here to clean up your mess, I saw my own name on the door, not yours. That means I give the orders and set the rules, rules that are there for a reason, one of which is to protect all of your worthless lives, though God knows why I'd want to do that."

"I…I was just doing what you would've done."

Wyatt's scowl deepened. If he'd noticed Slippy at the door yet, he didn't care. "_You_ are not _me_. If I choose to take a calculated risk, I can fix problems. When I was woken up from a lovely sleep by the cheery warning that we were all about to die, no one said, 'don't worry, that new dullard who likes taking notes is on the case,' they said, 'Doctor Wyatt, please come fix this idiot's screw-up.' When you make mistakes, I have to fix them. Clear enough?"

Slippy sighed and spoke up; he'd let the good doctor assert his authority long enough. "Giving our new friend some pointers, Robert?"

Wyatt's sneer retreated into a tight-lipped scowl and he straightened up, taking a few deep breaths through his nose to calm down. "Go to the infirmary and tell whoever's on call that I want you to have a full radiation screening. Don't hurry back."

The kid nodded and hurried past Slippy as quickly as he could without running.

"Where do we find these people, Toad?" the badger grumbled, sinking into the workstation's chair and rapidly typing at the containment chamber's monitoring console. "Has the TETRA science department's qualification process become even easier since I joined?"

"Don't you remember those post-college days? Yearning for discovery, setting out to make your mark, wanting to impress the older minds? Would you have stayed still and babysat a number scale?"

Wyatt scoffed. "I was already published before I graduated. Oh, and if I screwed up my college thesis experiment, I wouldn't have blown up the campus. And the surrounding city."

"You told me this fragment was inert up to three-point-five," Slippy replied between yawns. "Aren't you overreacting a little?"

"Pardon me if I don't want to take chances with a piece of tech that could revolutionize Project: Warlock."

"That's a very tenuous 'could,' Robert."

The badger shoved off from the console, his chair rolling to an adjacent workstation where he checked the holoscreens. "Perhaps, but if anyone's going to fail at this study, it should be me rather than some drooling assistant. That way at least we know nothing else could've been done."

Slippy chuckled under his breath. Sometimes, Wyatt's ego was entertaining to spar with, but he could feel the exhaustion of the previous night's late work hours calling him back to bed. "Can you handle this?"

"Yeah, just resetting parameters and double-checking the purge overrides. I'll get one of the other drones to take watch when I'm done, hopefully one whose IQ is higher than his age."

"Goodnight, Robert."

"Little late for that," he mumbled in response.

Slippy returned down the corridor toward his quarters, the doctor's rumblings eventually fading. But no sooner had he rounded the corner at the far end than blackness fell over him, the few active lights gone dark and the perpetually active workstations and consoles from neighboring labs cut off. They powered down with an electronic sigh, leaving the station in eerie silence.

"Wyatt…"

"It wasn't me!" the badger called from back in the isolation room.

Slippy fumbled his way back toward Wyatt, keeping his hands against the wall for his bearings until the emergency generators kicked in a few seconds later. Red light bathed the corridor, causing the toad to blink rapidly to grow accustomed to it. Elsewhere in the station, loud voices called to each other, too far away to make out their words.

"What happened?" Slippy asked as he rejoined Wyatt, finding him angrily typing at a fold-out security computer embedded in the wall opposite the door. A quick, relieved glance at the isolation chamber's holoscreen showed that its independent generator was still active.

"Primary power went down," Wyatt reported. "That dunce probably stuck his finger in a socket on the way to the infirmary. We still have auxiliary power and critical systems, but…hmm…a generator diagnostic is showing damage."

Slippy stepped to the console, banging his hip against a chair in the dim red light, and reached past his colleague to press the broadband call for the station security forces' communicators. "Overwatch One, this is Doctor Toad. We seem to be having a problem with the primary generator. You're closest; please check it out and report back while I muster a repair crew."

The two scientists waited for a confirmation that never came.

"Overwatch One, please respond."

Wyatt shrugged. "Base comms are operational, I don't know what could be—" His musing was cut short by a sharp, muffled rumble, like distant thunder, and the room quaked beneath their feet. "Good God, what was that?"

"Did the generator just go up?"

The badger turned to the computer and shook his head. "Diagnostic reads the same. It couldn't have overloaded; damage had already cut out its power. Maybe—"

Again he was cut off, this time by the encroaching cacophony of panicked voices and…gunfire? The unmistakable reports of automatic energy weapons fire rang through the corridors, only a couple labs away at Slippy's best guess. He grabbed the shoulder of Wyatt's bathrobe and tugged him along to the door, where he cautiously peeked out.

"Doctors!"

"Gah!" At the sudden sight of the TETRA soldier, Wyatt stumbled back and collided with a desk, knocking the keyboard and holoscreen emitter to the ground. He took a few deep breaths and squinted at the canine soldier with frightened eyes. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

"Sir, we have to—"

"Who's shooting? Why is there shooting? What's going on?"

"Calm down, Robert!" Slippy hissed with a glare back. He turned his attention to the soldier, catching a whiff of ion exhaust from his recently-fired rifle. "What's happening?"

The soldier pointed down the corridor, away from the gunfire. "I have to get you both to a secure location. We're under attack."

"By whom?"

"It all happened fast. All of our outside patrols went down. When the main entrance blast door was breached, we set up a firing line and…and, uh…" He swallowed. "There's only one. I think it's her."

A shiver went up Slippy's spine and his chest tightened. "Raven."

Wyatt's face fell even more and his jaw hung open. "That can't be. Not here. I never woke up, that's what it is. I'm still sleeping and this is my nightmare. Incompetent assistants and Sharpclaw assassins."

"Listen to me," Slippy firmly commanded the soldier, seeing his eyes take on a glow of fear. Understandable given their foe. "We can make our own way to the shuttle bay. I want you to tell your commander to disengage and focus on escorting all base personnel to the shuttles as well. Don't waste any more lives. I'm going to stop at the control hub and enact the station self-destruct."

"What?" Wyatt snapped, shock momentarily overtaking panic in his voice. He shakily pointed at the isolation chamber. "You'll destroy the artifact!"

"We have no choice; the base is compromised if the Sharpclaw know we're here and we don't have time to safely move it. It may be beneficial to us, but it's downright catastrophic in their hands. We can't allow Raven to get to it. If the object's instability adds to the force of the blast, we may just take her out in the process. That in itself might be worth it."

"But…but…"

"Go! Now!"

With a grim but resolute nod, the soldier hurried toward the fighting while Slippy dragged his fellow doctor in the other direction. But the blood-red corridor suddenly illuminated in an explosion of muzzle flashes as the combat spilled into their line of sight, soldiers shuffling back and firing. Barely making it three steps from the lab, the canine skidded back and gave the two doctors a shove to hurry them along, shouting inaudibly beneath the din of gunfire. Slippy thought he heard 'stay down' and 'hurry' and other commands his body decided to undertake naturally. Ducking and running, the three of them retreated to an intersection where the soldier pushed them leftwards – the hallway to the control hub.

"So much for that plan, doc," he said, panting. He knelt and leaned around the corner, rifle shouldered and aimed at the only way Raven could come if she fought through the others. "Go. I'll hold her here."

"That might be a problem," Wyatt responded from behind Slippy. He'd wasted no time going further toward the control hub, but he stopped forty feet or so along. Through the darkness, Slippy could see that the control wing's emergency blast door had lowered, blocking them off. "My access code isn't working!"

Slippy ran to him and tried punching his own code into the door's keypad, earning himself a scolding tone and a red light. "I thought you said critical systems are online!"

"Critical systems _are_ online; they just don't belong to us! She didn't just destroy the generator, she disabled it and must've corrupted the subroutine associated with the backup power systems. So no lights or defensive systems, and everything else is hers. Huh, I thought there was something odd about that diagnostic reading."

"And _now_ you decide to mention it?"

"I thought it meant the system needed an update, not that the angel of death was stopping by for a late snack!"

"Doctors!" The sharp interjection from the soldier cut off any further retort. "Can you get the door open or not?"

Wyatt blinked. "Uh…yeah…yeah, I think so." Digging his fingerclaws under the control panel's cover plate, he tugged until it came loose and clattered to the floor, revealing its internal wiring and circuitry. "Give me a minute."

Though Slippy knew that Wyatt was the only other person on the station who could work with tech as proficiently as himself, the comfort of his assurance was short-lived. Within seconds, the crackle of sparks and clicking of metal on metal became the loudest noises in the station; the gunfire had ceased.

The three men exchanged nervous glances. Did the soldiers kill her? Drive her off?

Or was there no one left to pull the trigger?

Slippy didn't feel like waiting in the dead end corridor to find out. He whispered to Wyatt, "I don't think we have a minute. Hurry."

The quiet held, interspersed with Wyatt's clicking. Even if he knew it was technically impossible, Slippy could swear he heard the lonely, empty whistling of Titania's desert winds through the thick station walls. He couldn't stop his mind from conjuring up the stories he'd heard about Raven. That she was a phantom, unstoppable, relentless. That she was an advanced android, incapable of being destroyed. That she was an Androssian biological creation, a beast without a soul. He never believed any of the wild tales, but in the agonizing darkness, the red-tinged black before him began to swirl, his imagination running wild with what was coming for him. For no matter what she was, Slippy had no trouble believing the two traits that bound every encounter together.

She killed with cold efficiency and she never failed.

"I think it might be clear," the soldier whispered, his trigger remaining half-pulled the whole time.

"Try comms," Slippy suggested.

The canine's left hand went to his earpiece then immediately back to the rifle foregrip. "Any TETRA forces, come in. Under attack at the hub east entrance and requesting immediate assistance." A pause. "Repeat, any TETRA forces, please respond." With a somber shake of his head, the soldier diverted his keen watch for a split second to make eye contact with the toad and report, "Nothing, sir. I think—"

That glint in his eyes, barely piercing the darkness for a moment, was the last spark of life Slippy saw from him.

It happened too fast for the soldier to even react, much less for Slippy to warn him.

Like a trick of the heavy silence, there arose the hush of one light footstep, then another, louder and closer. Only two strides and the phantom was upon him, the sheen of metal catching the red light for a blink of an eye before it thrust forward, the silence finally shattered by the sickening, wet sound of punctured flesh. He flew back, the blade driving through him and pinning his limp body against the plasteel wall with a sparking strike.

All Slippy could gasp was, "God!" before stumbling back and falling to the ground. Wyatt whimpered and shivered beside him.

She stood tall, wreathed in darkness, her race impossible to tell, her face hidden, even her clothing indiscernible. She tugged on her weapon – a bladed staff, the crescent blade dripping blood – and let the dead body fall to the ground. With a flick of her wrist downward, the excess blood was wicked away onto the floor. During her calm, deliberate movements, Slippy had been scooting as far back as he could but the door remained shut, flat against his back.

No way out.

The shadows shifted and Slippy's blood ran cold; he somehow knew she was looking at him. Each footstep like one more nail in his coffin, she walked toward the two doctors. No more than ten feet away, he could make out a hood draped over her ears and a cape or cloak or long coat embracing her and fluttering about her ankles. Her left hand clutched a pistol while her right carried the bladed weapon at a downward, rested angle that by no means diminished its threat. But still, it seemed that every time the light was about to show her face as she approached, it receded.

The blade flashed again and Slippy cried out, his heart racing and his throat tight as he suddenly found himself staring down the weapon's staff, the blade at his neck, so close he could feel the warmth of the fresh blood.

He closed his eyes, paralyzed by his the brevity of the life that remained, and waited for the pain.

\

* * *

><p><em>TETRA Prime Station Asgard<br>1754 hours Cornera City time_

\

"Hello?"

An unexpected, earthy scent of natural wood greeted Andrea as she stepped from the crisp white hallway into another world. With a quick double take at the door panel to make sure she was in the right place, she let the door slide shut behind her and gazed around in wonder at the arena…or more accurately, the furnishings that blocked out the neutral, dull whites of the usual arena. In the welcoming, subdued yellow light, tapestries and banners hung on the walls, some nearly from ceiling to floor, all depicting some battle scene or another from times when catapults were considered advanced. Adorned with black and red ink, symbolic banners and standards flanked the tapestries, though Andrea couldn't recognize the symbols. Tribal? Coats of arms? Probably as old as the battles themselves and just as forgotten as the soldiers fighting.

"Master Sergeant Kurtz?"

As she wandered around, Andrea lowered her eyes from the tapestries and studied the furnishings and fixtures against the walls, ringing the arena mat. Benches, armor stands, sparring posts, weapon racks, all crafted of dark, lustrous wood. Draped about the armor stands' wooden skeletons were sets of obsolete leather and plate, dulled and cracked with time. How they survived this long, Andrea couldn't fathom. The weapons held upright on the half-dozen long racks seemed more usable…so long as no one brought along a gun. Practicality aside, the array of swords, axes, and staves kept her attention and she found herself fascinated by this little slice of anachronism in the middle of the most advanced space station in Lylatian history.

A click from the far left corner drew Andrea's attention and she spied someone entering from another doorway. He had to duck his head to fit under the doorframe and when he stood upright again, he reached at least six and a half feet. He looked up from the silver dagger he'd been cleaning with a gray cloth and let his hawkish eyes linger on his guest. The canine seemed to belong in the room, TETRA whites nowhere to be found on his body, instead replaced by a black tank top, green cargo pants, and ankle boots – and judging from his muscular arms and warrior's build, no one was going to bother him about dress code violations. His black and tan fur blended with the aged surroundings and wooden décor. He looked her over head to toe, his amber eyes gleaming from behind a long, square-cut muzzle.

"Master Sergeant Kurtz? Ansel Kurtz?"

He slowly nodded and dropped his gaze back to the dagger, resuming its cleaning.

"Quite a place here. I guess Toad lets you do what you want with it."

He nodded. Seemed Falco wasn't joking about his wordiness.

Andrea tried to nudge him along. "Toad sent me. Last stop of the day. I hope you know why, because he didn't tell me."

At last, he spoke, two simple words uttered in a deep, heavily Macbethian-accented voice, so thick that if he said anymore she probably wouldn't have caught it. "To fight."

"More combat androids?"

"No robots here. No pretend."

Andrea arched an eyebrow. "You and me?"

"Yes."

She hooked a thumb at one of the armor racks. "What're we gonna do, slap on the armor and get medieval?"

Kurtz shot a glare up at her as if she'd insulted him. "Armor not there to use. There to remind."

"Of what?"

He didn't answer. Rather, he appeared satisfied in the condition of the dagger and placed it down on a nearby table before heading over to the weapon racks. After perusing an expanse of staffed weapons from different ancient cultures, he selected one and removed it from the rack. A long, green-shafted staff with two nasty surprises: gleaming curved blades, one at either end, ornate etchings adorning the metal. He bobbed it up and down a couple times then whipped it into a blinding series of spins that left Andrea blinking, impressed.

"I take it the weapons are there to use," she said.

Kurtz finished his warm-up and rested the shaft on his shoulder. "If you know how." He tapped his shoulder with the weapon. "Dangerous in wrong hands. Cut own arm off."

"That's why I like firearms. Relatively low chance of blowing your own limbs away."

A deep rumble rose in Kurtz's throat and he uttered in disgust, "No guns here. Guns fail. Depend on ammunition. Clumsy. Simple. A coward can master a gun. A coward cannot master this. Or himself."

Andrea couldn't be sure where he was going with that, but she thought better of asking for an explanation. His grasp of Lylatian Common was functional at best. "If you're supposed to help me master these weapons, I'm not going to be onboard the _Asgard_ that long."

"You right away believe you are not coward? That I would teach you?"

Andrea hesitated, caught off balance by the question. "I've passed my share of trials. I couldn't fight in the Lylat War, but I've had my own wars since then."

"Being in war does not mean you are not coward. Only what you do matters."

"Did you fight in the war?"

Kurtz narrowed his eyes at her. "Yes."

"What did you do?"

"I killed."

She couldn't argue with that blunt yet all-encompassing response.

"Past does not matter," Kurtz continued, his eyes still boring into hers. "All that matters now is if stand against me."

The wolf returned his hard look. "After Lucy, I'm up for a real spar. What do I use? Swords and maces aren't exactly covered in the Cornerian Army. I'm not trained in anything here."

"Not true." A small, nearly invisible hint of a grin pulled at the canine's muzzle. He retrieved the silver dagger from the table and, in one smooth over hand move, sent it spinning through the air at Andrea. With a light thud, the blade sunk into the mat at her feet and stood upright, quivering. "Yes? Even in name."

She realized he probably meant Dagger and rolled her eyes as she crouched and tugged the blade free. Though not a modern military knife by any means, its simple design and elegance, not to mention its weight and balance, gave it a good feel. "Yeah…we're trained with knives for silent, surprise kills¸ not fending off rogue ren fairs. How am I supposed to defend against…that? What's that called anyway?"

"Many names. In my history, _khurseim_. Common is double-bladed staff." He eased the staff off his shoulder and gently lit the bottom point on the ground, holding it upright. At full length, it overshadowed him by half a foot. "Size matters nothing. Strengths and weaknesses to all. You must learn the khurseim's weaknesses to stand against."

Andrea sighed through her nose as she twirled the dagger through her fingers. She got it; she had to go through the same thing with the Vipers and with Dagger. The Lucy fight, and now the stacked brawl with Kurtz the barbarian…grinding down the new gal. Asserting authority, putting her through her paces, making sure she could take the punishment. It made sense; Toad seemed like the kind of boss who wanted his own evaluations rather than relying on the army's write-up.

"Are you ready?" Kurtz asked, settling himself into a prepared stance.

"Wouldn't want to disappoint ol' Toad," she uttered. With a frown, she traced the razor-sharp edge of the dagger. No doubt, the bladed staff sported the same lethality. "No protection at all? Do we have rules for—?"

Upon catching movement in her peripherals, Andrea looked up and had time enough to only blink in shock before ducking, a staff blade screaming over her ears. She leaped forward into a shoulder roll and hopped up to face him, nerves still on edge. "Are you fucking crazy? That could've taken my head off!"

Kurtz slowly turned to her, spinning the staff back into its relaxed position from where he'd finished his swing. "But it did not."

She shook her head in disbelief. "Seriously? Just a straight fight with lethal weaponry? Until…what?"

"Blood drawn."

"Yeah, great, but that thing's designed to draw more than just blood."

Kurtz nodded. "Always there is danger. But there must be trust. Trust in my control."

"And you trust my control with a knife?"

The subtle grin returned to his muzzle. "I am…not worried."

Silence passed as the canine waited, motionless, for her to raise the dagger and make a move, but she only stood with her eyes flicking between her opponent and the gleaming metal of his blades. She knew she should have been insulted by his little dig, but he was right. What'd he have to worry about from her and her letter opener?

"You are afraid," Kurtz accused flatly.

Andrea didn't respond. She hadn't thought about it, but…why did she hesitate to fight?

"You may leave if you want. No force. Not many stay."

She didn't know what was keeping her from fighting; nearly getting her head taken off wasn't the closest call she'd survived in her life. But a feeling of helplessness overwhelmed her, a feeling of smallness before the warrior's might and confidence, a feeling of intimidation by that double-bladed staff that could only be matched by staring down the barrel of a tank cannon. She swore she'd never feel helpless again, not like Wolf made her feel, but here it was, strong as the undimmed memories.

"You are Dagger," Kurtz said. "You are never outmatched in war today. My mentor told me…worst feeling in world is standing against opponent and knowing you can never beat him. That he kill you and nothing you can do about it."

A shiver ran up Andrea's spine and her palms sweated. He might as well have read her mind like Lucy and spoke of her feelings living with her brother.

"So, Dagger corporal, never outmatched. Can you do something about this? Or do you know I kill you?"

Andrea's mind raced, her heart pounding. Any immediate tactic she could think of wouldn't work. No gun, no retreating, no sniper support, no teammates, no gear of any kind. Just her and her opponent.

But there's always a way. That was rule one in Dagger; Gage's personal mantra.

Is this what she lacked? What the men in charge never saw in her? The ability to see the way? To improvise? To live and breathe and think as an operator? To turn off the fear?

She couldn't see the way. All she saw was herself and the man with the bladed staff. No way other than to fight, like the dead men in the tapestries.

She felt her fingers loosen around the dagger grip.

"Andrea!"

Her fingers tightened and she sucked in a quick breath, tugged back into the present by Falco's voice.

The avian bust into the room and gave a little greeting nod to Kurtz before beckoning Andrea to follow him. "Come on, Toad just called a briefing and he wants you there. There's been a little…incident."

Secretly glad that he interrupted when he did, she nodded then fully realized what he said.

He seemed to read her mind and added, "Don't worry, it's not about your team. But Slippy was involved, so naturally big Toad wants people front and center ASAP. You two'll have to finish your little playdate some other time."

Andrea jogged over to Kurtz and flipped the dagger around so she could hand it back to him handle first. Frowning in objection to the interruption, he took it and gave her a squint.

"I'll be back," she said, unsure if even she believed it.

"Hm," he grunted, leaving it at that. They turned away and went their separate directions.

But something caught Andrea's eye as the burly canine turned, an unnatural black pattern on his tan back fur. Poking out of the tank top and curling its way along his left shoulder blade toward his neck was an intricate snake tattoo. No, not an ink tattoo, she realized…a brand, not something seen everyday. There was something familiar about it, though, something that brought back memories of…

Her breath caught in her throat as she realized where she'd seen it before.

"Venom?" she said in a near whisper. "You fought for the Venomian Army in the war?"

The words slowed Kurtz's movements, but he kept on, steadily and deliberately returning his weapons to their proper places. Before he left through the opposite door, he uttered something, nearly incomprehensible in its accent and tone.

"Past does not matter."

Like Andrea's own claim that she'd return to spar, he didn't sound convinced of his own words either.

\

**_-Chapter 4 coming soon-_**


	5. The Black King

[Author's Note: Thanks for reading and enjoy! ~Foxmerc]

\

CHAPTER 4  
>The Black King<br>_SDC Arrowhead, Titanian orbit_  
><em>0912 hours Titanian local<em>

\

The incense stick had begun to whither, its final smoky breaths swirling up and around her rigid face.

It burned for as long as she needed to work and it had been burning for hours, filling the small, sparse bed quarters with thick haze and a sweet, nearly overwhelming aroma.

Urqhala incense was said to be a soul poison where she came from. It seeped into a person's body, heart, and spirit and each breath expended the very essence of life, the malicious smoke dragging the soul with it. Being locked in a room with burning urqhala served as punishment for many serious crimes, ensuring that when the criminal met his end, he would not find peace until he traveled to the underworld and fought to reclaim his shattered soul.

She didn't know if she truly believed that. But she did know that as long as she knelt on that cold, hard floor and worked, it would burn.

With a final twist of metal between her sore, bleeding fingers, the dove was finished. After nearly an hour of work that wrenched her finger joints and cut her flesh in dozens of locations, the plain sheet of aluminum had been folded and transformed into a gleaming, bloodstained bird of peace that fit in her palm

Her mother could have produced a paper dove so perfect, one could swear it would fly out of her hand. Her brother and two sisters could have made an entire menagerie and dyed the paper with such precision as to make the heavenly creators of the animals envious. Always she, the youngest, struggled to match her family's skill.

She had watched as her mother, tears streaming down her cheeks, created the first metal animal she had ever seen: a dove, a symbol of love and peace. Her hands bled as well; she said that was the point. The creation of the dove had to match the pain she felt, the love she felt, and never would she trust that to the fragility of paper. She placed the metal dove atop her husband's wrapped body and when the funeral pyre had reduced him to naught but ash, the dove remained, to be with him forever. She never created another dove.

Raven cupped her own metal dove in her palms and closed her eyes, her lips silently reciting a funeral prayer she knew by heart. In the words of her people, she wished the departed a swift and sound journey to the afterlife, wished the departed's family solace and comfort through their love, and wished the departed's children a long legacy.

Though the traditional prayer had ended, she, as ever, added a last wish.

She wished for the departed's forgiveness.

No sooner had her prayer ended than the hydraulic sigh of the door breathed behind her. The incense smoke billowed and danced as the new air rushed in and the haze rushed out. But something even fouler than the legendary incense tainted the room; it pricked her mind and infected her blood with cold heat. In her unguarded state, it threatened to overwhelm her due not to its own volition, but to its wild, untamed animosity, like a great wave dragging the unwary to drown in its depths.

His voice echoed in her head. "God damn! Smells like a whorehouse in here."

_Breathe it in. Breathe it deep._

Careful, she chided herself. Such is the way of tyrants.

"The general needs his favorite pet in the comm room. You gonna go yourself or do I need to fetch a leash?"

She could sense the cruelly amused smile after his words. Many times had he smiled at her expense; the feeling was becoming as familiar as the sting of urqhala in her nostrils.

Aware of the eyes following her, she stood and walked to a small chest near her bed, cradling the metal dove as if it were as delicate as a real one. Easing back the lid, she revealed dozens of identical metal doves, all as bloodstained and perfect as heir newest addition. She placed it among them and dared to wonder how full the chest would become before she was through.

Flipping the hood of her cloak over her head, she turned to follow Cerberus away.

The black tiger stood in her doorway leaning against the frame, his muscular arms folded over the chest of his deep crimson t-shirt. Never without weaponry, he wore a leather shoulder holster and a second holster over the right thigh of his black cargo pants. The smirk still twisted his muzzle and his yellow eyes narrowed, bemused as always by her hood. He did not know why she tried to hide her face when he already knew her well. None of these Sharpclaw knew why. But it mattered not; they could not understand even if it was theirs to know.

With a little cackle in his throat, he led her through the cold, gray corridors of the Sharpclaw Security Applications cruiser. Crimson and gray-clad soldiers and employees rushed about, their conversations hushing and their paces quickening around her. Few of them dared look her in the eye and those that did quickly broke away.

Five minutes of travel through the inner corridors of the ship brought them to the sector's holographic communications room. Aside from some technical equipment embedded in the walls, the modestly-sized room contained only a single projection pad in the middle of the floor. As the door closed behind them, blotting out any outside noise, Cerberus punched in a code on the nearest wall console. The lights dimmed and with a series of musical tones to indicate an incoming call, the projection pad bloomed to life, creating a full body image of the only man besides Cerberus to make her blood run cold.

"General Scales," the tiger greeted.

Even in holographic form, the tall emerald lizard commanded more presence than most any man she'd met in all Lylat. His left hand hung casually from the pocket of his gray slacks. His gray dress shirt was open at the collar, crimson tie loosened, and his sleeves rolled to the elbows above his toned forearms. Perched between his right thumb and forefinger, a cigar leaked a steady stream of smoke. He eyed each of them in turn with a gaze that hadn't lost any luster in middle-age and took a long draw of the cigar. Though impossible, she could swear she smelled the distinctive aroma.

"Captain Morden," he replied, his words smooth and deliberate. "My dear Raven."

Her stomach turned.

"I'm rather confused regarding your report on the Titania operation."

Cerberus scowled and shot a fiery glare at Raven. "She fucked around _again_, sir. We have Toad in custody and she brought the fragment back, but our scans showed at least a dozen remaining life signs."

Scales' face shimmered in a cloud of smoke as he sighed. "My orders were no survivors, Raven. No one to continue the work. No one to trace your fighter. Nothing."

The two men both looked at her expectantly, their respective disappointment and hatred soothing in some regard.

"I destroyed their research," she finally replied, barely above a whisper, "and their electrical systems. They were children trapped in a cave. There was no need for further killing."

Scales just looked at her and smoked, his face unreadable, his silence stretching the seconds longer and longer. At last, he flicked his hand and said, "Captain, leave us for a moment."

Cerberus snarled at her, waves of his wild hate threatening to choke her as he brushed past and out the door. When she was alone, Scales began to slowly pace back and forth wherever he was, though his holograph remained stationary.

"It seems unfair," he began, "that you do not hold up your end of our agreement, yet you expect me to hold up mine. Does that seem fair to you?"

She remained silent.

"As long as you're mine to command, you will do as you're told. Otherwise I see no reason to continue our arrangement."

Raven frowned. "This…_arrangement_ has cost me more than you promised."

"It has? Well, I'm very sorry, I had no idea. In that case, we should definitely part ways. I cannot rely on your cooperation and you cannot abide your job. Very well then, consider our deal null. No need to thank me. You may go."

She swallowed and stood her ground.

"Well? Go ahead; no one will try to stop you. But, of course, they couldn't if they tried. You could've left any time you wanted."

Just the idea of fleeing Scales lightened her heart, but it was a dream destined only for fantasy. The truth of what would happen if she did flee weighed deeply on her. How could she be so foolish, so irresponsible? Damn the man! Cheeks flushed, she bowed her head.

"I take it you're rediscovering your satisfaction with your employment?"

"Please," she whispered, voice shaking with battered pride and quiet desperation. "I'm sorry."

"You're damn right you are." Scales drew from the cigar and ash fell, disappearing from the holograph's field of view. "If you try to add your own spin to my orders one more time, I'll have to seriously reassess your value to Sharpclaw Security Applications and its…extended projects."

"I understand."

"Let's hope so. I have an important call to make to an old friend soon so listen well; I won't repeat myself. While Captain Morden persuades Toad the younger to help in our advancements with the fragments, I need you to deliver our promised shipment to the Ruby Queen. No trouble; Lady Farrow is a useful distraction for the moment. Make sure she's satisfied."

Raven could feel an objection rising in her throat, eager to speak out, but she swallowed it back down and accepted the sad task with a grim nod. "What of the last Dagger soldier? The one who escaped the Feryon."

Scales snickered. "Beltino managed to snatch her up, that old busybody. But it doesn't matter. Judging from some rather entertaining research into her military service, she'll be more a hindrance to him than a help. You're lucky it was that one you let slip away; any other Dagger operator could've been trouble."

"I can fix it if you desire. I can—"

"No," the lizard interrupted. "No deviations. All I need from you is to do as you're told. And Raven?"

She reluctantly raised her eyes to meet his.

"Don't allow your vision to become clouded. Remember why you're here. And remember that power is…relative."

No further words were needed. Raven had bested Dagger, the greatest warriors in Lylat. She'd taken down entire bases with fearsome precision and efficiency, cleared entire ships with the cold deadliness of the space that surrounded them. She knew that TETRA soldiers feared her more than a thousand Sharpclaw and the Sharpclaw feared her even more because they knew her better.

And yet her power was nothing compared to the man who wielded her, the man who held her "leash" as Cerberus would've said.

The man who held her future, her purpose, her dreams, in the palm of his hand, ready to crush them at his whim.

Her own power felt as nothing in comparison.

"I understand," she whispered, cheeks burning, though whether from anger or humiliation she could not be certain. Did it matter? A slave seething at her chains was still a slave.

The hologram flickered off and the room's lights brightened once again. Raven stood motionless for some time, steadily breathing, trying to calm herself and dissipate her pent-up emotions rather than letting them fester. For a moment, she dared wonder if she could kill Scales where he stood, wherever in the galaxy he lurked. But she chastised herself for the dangerous thought.

_Such is the way of tyrants._

As she turned to leave, she took to heart the few words Scales had said that rang true: remember why you're here.

Back in her room, the remnants of the urqhala incense curling around her like a comforting embrace, she opened the dove chest and again looked upon the flock of gleaming birds. One for every life she'd taken. Already so many more than she'd hoped there would be, and yet certainly the end had not yet been reached.

She knelt on the floor, intending to spend the rest of the night in prayer for the fallen. If her soul allowed, she would spare a moment's prayer for herself, for the strength to see her task through and, tempted as she ever was, to not fall into the way of tyrants.

\

* * *

><p><em>TETRA Prime Station Asgard, Cornerian orbit<br>1826 hours Corneria City time  
><em>

\

Already the briefing room was filling up by the time Andrea and Falco arrived. Like everything Toad put his stamp on, the place was far grander than the typical military briefing room she'd grown used to. A holo-projector lay embedded in the middle of the floor, while the seats ringed the projector platform in rising tiers, everything in white TDE plasteel from the ergonomic chairs to the high arched ceiling. Not for the first time, Andrea wondered how they managed to keep everything so clean with white as the official color.

Hunter had beaten them there and waved them up to the third tier. He wore something different from the basic uniform she'd first seen him in; the usual silver pants, but now a black high-collared shirt with silver trim and highlights. What drew Andrea's eye most was a striking silver design of a stylized hawk on the collar.

"The boss ain't pulling any punches," Hunter said as they took their seats beside him. "Looks like he brought in every active team on station."

Andrea scanned the room, the buzz of conversation growing as dozens of TETRA soldiers filled the chairs, and realized that quite a few sported the same uniform as her fellow wolf. "What kind of teams?"

"Warbirds."

"Sort'a like TETRA special forces," Falco elaborated. "Toad had this idea of creating two-man special task teams; guys proficient in flying, ground combat, recon, all that. Jack of all trades kind of thing. The badasses of TETRA. Naturally, I was a shoo-in."

Hunter scoffed and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. "Yeah, helps to've served with the boss's son."

"Oh, yeah, it had nothing to do with the part of my resume that said 'stopped maniacal ape from achieving galactic domination.' What did it say on your application?"

"Please; while you and your merry band were mugging at cameras, I was still mopping up the outer rims."

Andrea rolled her eyes at the two, watching as more soldiers filed in. At last, the influx seemed to trickle off, leaving at least a hundred men and women in the room. "You boys just ooze professionalism."

"We get the job done," Falco replied with a smirk. "That's what counts to Toad."

A few questions came to mind regarding the Warbirds, but before she could ask, the room's lights dimmed and the scattered conversations ceased. From a darkened doorway emerged an elderly panther, radiant in a silver and gold-trimmed dress uniform that Andrea hadn't seen yet. But she could tell from its design, similar to the dress whites of a naval admiral, that he was up there in TETRA brass. Every soldier in the room – except Andrea – rose to attention and sat back down only after the panther gave a dismissive gesture. He walked with a confident gait to the central projector platform and clicked a small device in his hand, prompting the projector to spring to life and create a large holographic representation of the Lylat system above his head. Solar burned at Andrea's eye level in the center of the room, the planets slowly orbiting it.

"General Navarro," Falco whispered in her ear. "About as high up as you can get without sitting in Toad's chair. Shit must've hit the fan for him to be giving the brief."

Navarro clicked another button and a red spot appeared on the holographic Titania. As he cleared his throat to speak, Andrea found herself wondering about him. Obviously a career military man; Toad would've hired the best. Given his age he would've been active during the war as an officer, most likely. He carried himself with a quiet dignity that reminded her of General Pepper. What could've driven such a man to abandon the army he swore allegiance to and join mercenaries? To take off the medals and ribbons he earned through blood and sweat and put on a meaningless uniform? Money seemed too simple an answer, though maybe that was just wishful thinking.

"Seven hours ago," Navarro began, his voice a commanding baritone that echoed from the walls, "we lost contact with STR Station T4 on Titania. When communications were reestablished, the acting station commander reported an attack. Numerous eyewitness reports confirm Raven as the only enemy presence."

The name caused a surge of noise from the tiers as the soldiers exchanged worried looks and utterances.

"Seventeen members of the security detail were lost," Navarro continued, bringing silence back to the room. "And Doctor Slippy Toad was captured, along with the fragment he and his science team were studying. One of his colleagues has confirmed it."

Another swell of noise.

A pit formed in Andrea's gut at the news of Slippy's capture. She didn't know him well, but he was still a friend of a friend and the few times they did meet, he treated her like one of the team. Peeking sideways, she saw Falco's brow furrow and his beak purse, etching a frown that seemed to darken the blue of his feathers. She knew that face.

"This latest attack verifies a pattern that Intelligence has been tracking for the past four months. Many of our contracts put us in direct opposition to the Sharpclaw and their allies, as do most of our own operations, but TETRA personnel have encountered Raven during only six conflicts." Another click illuminated six red points spread across Lylat; two on Titania and one each on Venom, Macbeth, Katina, and Fortuna. "One common element binds these conflicts together; the fragments. Raven and the Sharpclaw either stole or beat us to a fragment each time. This leads us to believe that Raven is a freelancer and not a Sharpclaw soldier. She is most likely interested in the fragments herself, and decided that latching onto SSA resources was the best way to go about obtaining them. Intelligence has been able to uncover nothing of Raven's history. So far, their alliance has proven unfortunately effective. Aside from the fragment here on the Asgard being used for the development of Project: Warlock, we only possess one other, and its whereabouts will remain at the highest security clearance."

Glancing around the room, Andrea saw no one as lost as she was. Fragments? Warlock? And she remembered Beltino mentioning this Raven, but who the hell was she? Before she could even try to piece it together, Falco's heated voice broke the momentary silence.

"What about Slippy?"

The panther shot a frosty look up at him. "Doctor Toad has been deliberating with his advisers on how best to approach the recovery of his son. He's decided that the time has come to be more proactive on all fronts." Another click erased the existing points on the holograph and replaced them with a new set of pulsing, red dots – at least thirty of them – spread out all over the Lylatian planets and space. "As of now, all available Warbird teams are to be deployed, each with specific tasks that you will receive soon. In addition, your standing orders have been updated. First: information gathering is paramount; anything relating to the fragments, SSA strongholds and military positions, and prisoners. Second: recovery of personnel. If your assignments lead you to reliable information regarding Doctor Toad's son or any imprisoned TETRA personnel, you are ordered to attempt recovery if possible. If not, report for reinforcements. Also, be aware of detained neutrals, specifically a Cornerian special forces team believed to have been captured about three weeks ago. Help if you can, but do not jeopardize your assignments or TETRA personnel. Report their position and Command will advise."

Andrea scowled and could feel her blood heat up, but Falco's hand on her shoulder helped calm her, giving her a gentle squeeze.

"Lastly: you are free to engage any SSA combatants and military targets. If you encounter Raven, do not attempt to engage her alone. Follow her and wait for reinforcements or gunship support. Also, only Warbird Seventeen has been given clearance to enter Silver Reach as per their espionage orders." A yellow point pulsed in the northeastern hemisphere of Zoness for a few seconds before it dissipated along with the rest of the Lylat holograph. In its place, a green wireframe city skyline arose and slowly rotated, data text blocks strewn about it at various red hotspots, the same kind of representation the army used for military threat zones. Whatever this Silver Reach place was, it wasn't friendly. "All other travel there is restricted for the time being."

With a final click, the projector shut off and the briefing room lights brightened. Navarro looked around at his men. "Any questions?"

A soldier on the opposite side piped up. "Sir…are we at war?"

The general didn't answer immediately. But when an answer finally returned, it came from a new voice that drew every eye in the room to the doorway, a voice more imposing yet unshackled by Navarro's precise military monotone.

"Conflict between us is inevitable." Beltino Toad strode into the room and up to the projector platform, Navarro stepping aside. "As inevitable as conflict between water and fire. When TETRA was founded and its charter written with opposition to piracy, smuggling, slavery, and terrorism, it was inevitable that our contracts would bring us into conflict with those groups that accept such things. Namely, the Sharpclaw. But even if he is a cold, brutal being, I believed General Scales to be an honorable businessman. A man who kept his war confined to the contracts his company accepted. I was wrong."

Toad began to pace around the edge of the platform as he spoke. "His obsession with the fragments has transformed him into a very real threat. First he allies with Raven, a wrathful force that has claimed dozens of TETRA lives and invaded our non-military outposts. SSA now attacks us without regard for rules of engagement. And lastly, he has specifically targeted my son. If there is any clearer declaration of war, I have not witnessed it.

"You are the best I have, hand-picked from all over Lylat, not just for your martial skill but also for your integrity. I can order you to your tasks as your commander…but I can only ask for you to go above and beyond for my sake. I ask this with all earnest. Please, find my son."

The crowd of Warbirds remained silent as Beltino concluded and nodded at Navarro, signaling him to take charge once more. Though his stern face struggled to hide an undercurrent of grief, he exited the room with his head held high and his bearing as unshaken as ever. Since her time wallowing with her brother in Starwolf, Andrea had known fathers who didn't bat an eye at a child's death, who only cared about their own agenda. In the Vipers, she watched as one of her commanders left her own daughter to die in a battle rather than risk her own ship. The galaxy-weary side of Andrea whispered that Toad was no different; the detached, calculating CEO of a multi-billion credit enterprise _and _the commander in chief of a large private military company? Didn't strike her as the family man sort.

But the way Toad spoke curbed her cynicism enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. What else but the pain of lost family could get a man like Beltino to humbly plea for his employees' help?

Besides, she'd become all too familiar with the pain of a lost loved one during the previous weeks, and it was a feeling not be wished upon anyone.

The thought stirred concerns of how this development would affect her search for Dagger. But before she could whisper to Falco and ask him about seeing Beltino, her question was answered.

"Warbird Seven, see me in my office in exactly thirty minutes," the toad said as he neared the briefing room door. "And bring Corporal O'Donnell."

\

* * *

><p>\<p>

Beltino stepped off the elevator into his office, the cavernous room silent and still like the endless space beyond the transparent far wall. He knew what troubles awaited him at his desk: a computer filled to capacity with duties, a mission plan to coordinate and approve, an endless stream of messages from every department of TDE and TETRA, and heaviest of all, a small framed picture of his wife and son tucked in the second right-hand drawer. He didn't feel up to seeing it again.

The time for pining had passed.

Instead, he sat at the head of the long wooden conference table and pulled open a hidden keyboard built into the frame. A few keystrokes produced a holographic chessboard before him on the table, halfway between his seat and the comm unit in the middle of the table. He leaned back in the leather chair, crossing his legs, and rested his chin on his hand, studying the softly luminescent blue board, the pieces already locked in the static battle of a match in progress, his own white army and the enemy's black all but equal.

Being one step ahead of an opponent was crucial in chess as in life. And he knew his opponent well. He could be reasonably sure of the next four or fives moves, possibly ending the match there. However, his opponent knew Beltino equally well. In four or five moves, their match may just as well be the unstoppable tide against the immovable cliffs.

Unless one were to slip up.

After a few minutes lost in his mental calculations, Beltino glanced at the table's comm unit as it began to emit the tones of an incoming call. Few people knew the direct line to that unit. He inhaled deeply through his nose and hit the receive button on his keyboard before folding his hands on his lap. The top of the comm base opened and from inside rose the condensed frame of a holoscreen, the segments forming into a rectangular window before his eyes. Once the frame took shape, the screen flickered into view, displaying the caller: a dark green lizard sitting in a high-backed leather chair, the skyline of an expansive city visible through the wall of glass behind him. The lizard rested his elbows on his gleaming metal desk and smiled at the toad.

"Beltino," he greeted. "I'm rather surprised you answered my call."

"I don't leave tasks incomplete, Khamisi." Beltino glanced up from the board to see his opponent's eyes gazing slightly downward, no doubt at the duplicate holographic board on his end. "I believe it's your move."

The lizard strummed his fingers on the desk for nearly three minutes before tapping his keyboard twice. Knight to king four, as expected.

"You may be the only man left in Lylat who calls me that," he said, settling back after his move.

Beltino kept his eyes on the board. He knew the move to make, but another careful survey of options would cost him nothing but a few minutes. When he was satisfied of his plan, he tapped his own keys and his piece moved. "I may well be the only one left in Lylat who cares to remember you before you scarred yourself with the name Scales."

"Another time, another life, my friend." Khamisi grinned as he studied his options. "Hard to believe we still play the same day and same time every week, without fail. I almost didn't call today." His carefree demeanor fell slightly. "Of course, I almost didn't call once before. Eleven years ago." He looked up from the board. "She was a good woman, Beltino. I was sorry to hear of her passing."

"I'm impressed that you can still recognize virtue."

"But nonetheless, I called on time as always. You surprised me then, as you do now, sitting down to play. Moreso now, given the…circumstances." He tapped out a move, bringing his queen out of hiding and on the offensive.

Beltino leaned on the arm of his chair and tried to keep himself more focused on the game than on his opponent. "Did you call to play, Khamisi? Or did you call to remind me that my wife is long in the grave and our only child is the last blood I have left in this life? Rather transparent."

The amused grin was back on Khamisi's scaly face. "I don't want to hurt your son, Beltino. I simply need to borrow his expertise for some time. Don't push against me and no harm will come to him. When my project is complete, he'll be returned, you have my word."

"The promises of a poisonous tongue." Beltino moved his rook forward to divert and occupy the queen. Eventually the queen would be taken, but more value was to be had in allowing his opponent to think the piece still had power. "This is a dangerous game you're playing. I've sent numerous reports on your activities to friends in the Cornerian military; eventually, you may find an armada on Silver Reach's doorstep."

Khamisi chuckled. "I doubt that. No military in Lylat has reason to see SSA as an enemy; we've never been accused of any actions against military or police. Besides, the public is still reeling from the Black Scythe's misadventures last year. No politician would start up another conflict now because of some questionable contracts and isolated violence in the seedier parts of the system."

The toad hated to admit that the Sharpclaw had been meticulous in avoiding trouble with authorities. He wouldn't be surprised if TETRA actually rated as a higher watch priority to some. "And Dagger? The _Feryon_?"

Khamisi moved his bishop parallel with his queen, taking a white knight. The captured piece disintegrated from the board. "Never heard of Dagger. The _Feryon_ rings a bell; I saw it on the news a couple weeks back. Destroyed with all hands. And no clue who did it."

Beltino sighed through his nose. Even a man like Khamisi wasn't brazen enough to admit to killing or kidnapping a Cornerian black ops team on an open comm channel, but still the toad found it strangely offensive to be lied to in such a pedestrian manner. "Not all hands went down with that ship."

"Ah, yes. And on a completely unrelated note, how is the newest addition to TETRA's ranks?"

Beltino moved a pawn up, limiting the bishop's movements. His opponent had strayed from the predicted course, but so far it was nothing that couldn't be countered. "She has three things on her side: potential, drive, and an insatiable resolve to find her team."

"Is that so? A little bird told me that she's a far cry from being a formidable warrior. I hope her team, wherever they may be, keeps their expectations low."

"And I hope her enemies continue to underestimate her as well."

Khamisi's rook joined the offensive and eliminated a blocking pawn, securing another successful attack. With two unexpected moves now under the lizard's belt, Beltino found himself trying to even think a single move ahead. But his demeanor did not change in the least; stone solid, as unassuming as the digitally carved face of his idle king.

"I know you still have at least one fragment," Khamisi said. "If you give it to me, it will certainly expedite your son's return."

Beltino chuckled under his breath as he looked over his diminishing forces on the board. "You know, old friend, I was just talking about you not a half hour ago. I said that up until now, you at least acted like a businessman, which I could respect. But now…you're just a criminal in a suit. A terrorist with manners. You know me well enough that I cannot hide my desire to have my son back. But you've made a grave mistake if you believe I'll kowtow to you. All you've done is spark a war."

He moved his own queen over to help defend the king and provide escape options.

"So be it," the Khamisi replied casually. "For your sake, I hope your men are made of sterner stuff than what they've shown SSA thus far. We'll see how committed they are to a TETRA paycheck when Raven swoops onto the battlefield."

He tapped his keyboard with a flourish and his knight skirted to the white king's flank. With gleaming, narrow eyes and a cold smirk, he announced, "Check."

_Interesting._

Beltino glanced at his watch. "I have a meeting in two minutes; I'm afraid I'll have to cut our time short. Until next week then."

"Stopping now, so close to the end? Is the taste of defeat that bitter?"

Beltino sat upright and looked his enemy square in the eye. "Khamisi, believe me when I say you're _far_ from achieving a checkmate."

\

* * *

><p>\<p>

When Andrea stepped off the elevator with Hunter and Falco, she found Beltino sitting at the head of the conference table that stretched across the office before his desk. He seemed lost in thought, his eyes distant and set upon the comm unit in the table's center. Only when they neared did he acknowledge their presence by gesturing for them to join him at the table.

"Falco, Carter, I've decided to give you the assignment I consider top priority," the toad began once they were seated. "Familiar territory. Money, glamour, and a snake in a red dress."

Falco and Hunter exchanged a peeved look before the avian replied, "I could think of worse things to call her."

"I think she may in possession of the rogue _Feryon_ fragment. Worse, I believe she's about to sell it to Scales."

"Lady Farrow?" Hunter frowned. "Why would she have it?"

"When neither TETRA nor the Fortunian navy could track down the rogue fragment, we assumed Scales had managed to recover it. Yet his ships kept coming back for the next week to scan the area. I suspected a third party might have come across it; that area of space is heavily traveled by large ships avoiding the asteroid belt…and pirates avoiding Katinian patrols. If one of them picked up its energy signature and retrieved it, it would have no doubt found its way into the black market. No one would have truly known what it was."

"And no one has their claws deeper in illegal trafficking than Farrow," Falco finished.

Beltino nodded. "Indeed. With her connections, she would know that the Sharpclaw are looking for these fragments. No doubt, she bought it for pocket change compared to what she's selling it to him for." He paused. "This was all just a theory until two days ago. Our monitoring station traced a call from the Ruby Queen to an SSA ship. I doubt Farrow was calling to chat about the weather."

"So, we finally get to take her down?" Hunter asked, eyes lighting up. "Hell, I'll do this one for free."

"Not quite. I want you to go to the Ruby Queen and follow my orders to the letter. Details will be in your brief."

Hunter nodded, but Falco just looked down at the table with a scowl.

"Is that clear, Lieutenant Lombardi?"

The avian looked up at his boss and hesitated before replying. "I was hoping to go after Slippy. We gotta have some idea of where this shitbag is holding him. Just point me in the general direction and say the word."

Beltino returned a half-smile, part amused and part appreciative. "Lombardi, trust that every move I make brings us a step closer. When the time comes to retrieve my son, there's no one I'd sooner call on than you."

Andrea expected Falco to keep pressing, but he kept his beak shut and his brow furrowed. Instead, she hopped in herself. "And how many steps until I find my team? I'll do whatever I can to help you get Slippy, but if you're right and my team's out there…look, I'm not TETRA. I'm Dagger, and I'll never stop being Dagger, even if I am buddying up with you guys for the time being. You're the one who came to me about my team; I belong out there looking for them, not working for you."

The toad shook his head. "I did not call you up here to give you a TETRA assignment, corporal. While I would have liked to garner a wider breadth of knowledge regarding your abilities through more evaluations, Scales has altered my timetables. If you believe you're ready, I agree that it's time for you to search for your team."

Andrea blinked. "Oh…good. But I need every bit of information you have about the Sharpclaw. Who they are, how they got my team, and what the hell these fragments are that everyone keeps talking about. No more secrets."

Beltino looked her in the eye and didn't respond for a few moments, his finger tapping against his forearm as he thought. Finally, he said, "Warbird Seven, you're dismissed. Best of luck."

Hunter eagerly bounded out of his chair and headed for the elevator, giving Andrea a nod of farewell. Lingering behind, Falco gave her a light sock to the shoulder in passing and uttered, "Good hunting. When you find the ol' boy scout, tell him sorry I wasn't there to bail his ass out this time."

Andrea grinned, the memory of Gage bittersweet. "Will do. Be safe out there, okay?"

"Little late in life to start now."

He joined his partner in the elevator and the doors closed, leaving her and Beltino in silence. The toad stood and walked over to a cabinet against the wall of old pictures, retrieving a bottle of sherry and a glass from the shelves. He took his time pouring and returning the bottle to its place before taking his seat again, sipping and relishing the sherry with a satisfied sigh. He arched his brow upon looking at his guest again. "Oh, I'm sorry. Can I get you something?"

"No, thanks," she replied flatly, wishing he'd get on with it. Fortunately, he wasted no more words.

With a tap of his keyboard, a holoscreen extracted from the conference table's central comm unit. A flurry of typing brought up a numbered mission intelligence file – password protected, of course – and then displayed a military dossier sheet, the picture showing a serious young lizard in a military uniform…a very familiar uniform.

"This is Khamisi Tafari, a young man who joined the Cornerian Army Engineer Corps after graduating college with a double major in biology and physics at age seventeen. The army recognized his potential and convinced him to serve four years in their defensive development research branch. I met him in my own younger years when Toad Development Enterprises was a fairly new name in the world of military hardware. We easily became friends; I saw in him an energetic genius and I suppose he saw in me a mind that appreciated him as a colleague instead of a mental superior. No offense to the army, of course."

Andrea arched her own brow but said nothing.

"It was he that convinced me to begin my exhaustive research into the G-Diffuser system," Beltino continued. "Between me and the army, he did Lylat a great service. When his four years were up, I convinced him to come work with me at TDE. In the years before the war, we did much together, both professionally and in leisure. We played chess often, frequented the theater…I even had him over to my house on holidays since he never did marry. He was one of the first people I called when my son was born. He was there for me when my wife died."

He stole a sip before continuing, his gaze on the picture of Tafari rather than Andrea. "The time came when one of our mutual colleagues became a rather outspoken danger in the scientific community: Andross. I found myself debating Tafari often, since he'd taken Andross' side that science and progress must be sought out even in the presence of sizeable danger and moral ambiguity. After the disaster that led to Andross' exile, Tafari was more enraged than ever. Eventually, the matter died down and I believed that was the end of it, though I'd learned of a darker side of my friend."

"Let me guess," Andrea interjected. "A few years later, Andross declares war and Tafari's giving him a thumbs-up."

"Not quite. He never did condone the war, but he couldn't fault Andross' motivations. To his credit, he did rejoin the Cornerian Army engineers for a time to help in the defense effort. He even earned a nickname when his research base was destroyed by a saboteur. He survived thirty-seven shrapnel punctures in his torso; the product of being stubborn and thick-hided, the doctor joked. Those around him began calling him Scales in jest. He didn't like it at first, but apparently it grew on him.

"I noticed a change in him after that. He became detached, more serious about his work. Halfway through the war, he disappeared. He left me a note saying he'd been given the opportunity of a lifetime and had to take it. I don't know what he meant and I never found out. Seven years passed; and just this past year, three weeks after the mercenary war ended, I received a call at the same time on the same day we used to play chess. And we started up again like nothing had happened. He wouldn't tell me where he'd been, but I know he came back a colder and harder man. He confided in me that he was starting a private military company, and I confided in him the same. And those two roads have led to today."

Andrea slowly nodded, her mind sorting everything she'd heard. "And everything would be happy and dandy, except his company has no problem with piracy, slavery, and pretty much anything to make a credit."

"Correct, sadly. At first, I questioned why someone like him would want to create a PMC, but then I looked at TETRA. If run well, a PMC can make more money than most businesses, especially with a mind like his at the helm. He always did say that scientists would make the best leaders due to their thought processes. Honestly, I would first question how he defines 'best.' Lord knows Andross had his own definition. Regardless, if he wishes to finance his own studies and research, SSA is the best way to do it. Aside from making money, his scruples are loose enough that he can 'acquire' what he needs through force and threat."

Andrea grunted. "I know the type."

Beltino sipped from his glass with one hand and tapped his keyboard with the other, bringing up another military dossier sheet, this one in the format of the Venomian Army. A black tiger stared back at her with vivid yellow eyes.

"This is Shane Morden, former Venomian special forces. Black Scythe, to be specific. All we know of him is that he's commander of Tafari's special operations, his callsign is Cerberus, and he was smart enough to stay clear of Torqinski's ill-fated plans last year. He's one to be wary of."

Beltino deactivated the holoscreen and leaned back in his chair as the frame retracted into the com unit. "There's one more person you should know."

"Raven," Andrea said.

With a grim nod, the toad continued. "We don't know who she is or what she looks like. But you heard in the briefing what she's done and what she's capable of doing. I consider her the Sharpclaw's most powerful weapon and our greatest threat. You're a Dagger operative; you have the best training in all of Lylat. But none of that will help you against her. Some of my best soldiers were swept aside like nothing, and some of my most battle-hardened veterans reduced to shivering wrecks in her presence."

Andrea's throat suddenly felt dry and she swallowed. "So…avoid her then."

"Until our tacticians can come up with a more permanent solution, yes. Fortunately, right now she seems to only surface when the fragments are in play. Which leads me to—"

"The fragments."

"Indeed." Beltino stood and polished off the remainder of his sherry. "Come. Some things deserve to be seen rather than explained."

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* * *

><p>\<p>

Andrea had never seen so many security checkpoints and redundancies. Posted security levels steadily rose the deeper Beltino brought her into the Asgard until they disappeared altogether, replaced by subtle creases in the walls that she recognized as alarm-triggered turret bays. The toad tried to allay her nervousness by saying there was a ten second delay to enter a code for secondary and tertiary failsafes, but she still let out a relieved breath when his keycard opened the final thick blast door and they could move on.

Numerous isolated labs breezed past them on either side as they walked to a chamber at the end of the white corridor. The large room was enclosed in glass on all sides, with four scientists in white coats scurrying about assorted consoles and holoscreens, barely paying the newcomers any mind. But what drew Andrea's attention was a floor-to-ceiling glass cylinder in the center of the room, barely wider than a sapling's trunk, protected by an invisible energy barrier, or so she assumed from the familiar emitter panels encircling it on the floor. Suspended by anti-gravity at eye-level inside the cylinder was a jagged piece of dark purple metal, the length of a flat hand, rough around the edges and etched with seemingly random inlays.

"That's it?" Andre asked, squinting at the shard. "That's what Scales is killing for?"

"Deceptive in its unassuming presence," Toad replied, nodding a greeting at the scientists. "This is the first we found, nearly half a year ago when a TDE survey picked up an energy spike on Katina. We don't know what it is or where it came from; the metal is of an element all its own and the inscriptions are illegible. But of particular interest to me – and Tafari – is the baffling level of energy it emits. Were we to harness its energy, it could power the _Asgard_ for centuries, or be put to more nefarious purposes. But my scientists recently discovered that the energy output is similar to a pattern we're already familiar with: bioelectricity. The implications of this are still being studied."

Andrea nodded, impressed. "You said the _Feryon_ was carrying one of these?"

"Correct. A few weeks before the attack on the _Feryon, _TETRA got wind of another energy signature on Fortuna. To keep our profile low, I convinced a government friend to arrange an excavation of the area. The site went dark; TETRA went in. Scales had launched an attack and managed to get away with one of two fragments found at the site. The other was transported to a secret TETRA facility, but I took the precaution of setting up a fake charter with another cargo ship as a decoy."

"The _Feryon_." Andrea pursed her lips. "My team died, or nearly died, because you wanted to cover your ass?"

"It wasn't supposed to happen; the ship was manned by prepared, armed soldiers, ordered to evacuate and scuttle the ship at any sign of danger. We didn't count on Raven; a status report confirmed her presence. I couldn't warn CASOC, couldn't risk leaking to the Sharpclaw the fact that we escaped with a fragment. So I watched and hoped for the best."

The wolf sighed through her nose and asked the question that'd been on her mind since she'd first arrived. Maybe now she'd get a straight answer. "Why do you think my team survived?"

"The TETRA ship monitoring the situation picked up an energy burst seconds before the _Feryon_ exploded, a very distinctive and unmistakable signature, belonging to a stealth vessel. We didn't pick it up going in, but we managed to catch that burst as it escaped, possibly because the explosion scrambled it momentarily. We believe Raven destroyed the ship to cover SSA's tracks. But she didn't leave alone; analysis of the signature indicated numerous life signs. And Raven never has back up. Since your report states that your team found no crew survivors, I'm led to believe they themselves were taken prisoner. Not enough evidence to make CASOC take action, but enough for you, I'm sure."

A tingling of cautious optimism rose in Andrea's chest. "Why didn't the Dagger transport pick up the energy burst? Or any other scanners in orbit?"

"Simple," Beltino replied with a melancholy grin. "They don't have the signature in their scan range. This specific stealth technology was never sold, only employed by the two men who co-designed it."

"You and Scales."

"The Arwing isn't the only bit of tech that I never offered to the military. I like for TETRA to have a leg up in some areas."

Andrea scoffed. "And you wonder why CASOC's keeping an eye on you."

"It's not distrust of the military that keeps my more advanced tech my own. I simply know that once the military possesses hardware, certain unscrupulous entrepreneurs will make it available to dangerous people across Lylat. And I'd rather those people not be able to detect my stealth or attack me with Arwings."

"Fair enough," she uttered. "I guess I should be thankful you're helping with Dagger…so long as saving their lives, which you put in danger, doesn't 'jeopardize TETRA personnel or assignments.'"

Beltino snickered, apparently familiar with that part of Navarro's briefing. "Just as you don't work for TETRA, I don't work for CASOC. Similar goals, varying priorities."

"And these fragments are your priority. And Scales'."

"I'm interested in the fragments for their scientific application, and I'm sure Tafari is as well. But it's too much power for hands as cold as his. I fear what he may do, what legacy he may be furthering."

"Legacy?"

Beltino gestured toward the fragment. "This was found in an old Venomian technology cache on Katina. The two Fortunian shards were found in a secret Venomian bunker. Most of the discovered fragments were retrieved either near or in abandoned Venomian sites. Andross may have created whatever device these fragments once belonged to. And nothing that sprang from his mind could be good for Lylat."

One of the scientists, a badger barely older than Andrea, waved emphatically through the glass, summoning them inside. A nearly inaudible groan escaped the toad's throat as he led the way around the chamber to a locked door. A lengthy keycode granted them access, a breath of cold, chemical-perfumed air wafting around them as the glass door slid open.

"Doctor Wyatt," Beltino greeted, shaking the badger's hand. "Good to see you. Corporal O'Donnell, this is Doctor Robert Wyatt. Doctor Wyatt, this is—"

"Yeah, yeah, great," the scientist interrupted ignoring Andrea's outstretched hand. "Listen, I have good news and bad news. The data I was able to salvage after Raven's attack is minimal at best, maybe only a month's worth of work."

Beltino nodded. "What's the good news?"

"That, uh…" Wyatt blinked. "That was the good news. The bad news is that I've been trying to apply it to this fragment since I got here, but even less of it is taking. All coding parameters have to be rewritten."

Beltino frowned at the man and looked him up and down. "Did you get any sleep on the flight here?"

Wyatt snorted and sat back down, spinning his seat around to face his console.. "Would you sleep after what happened?"

"Touché. What data were you able to save?"

"Well, if there's any silver lining, that's it; all my work into Project: Warlock is still there."

Warlock? That was the second time Andrea had heard of it. "What's that?"

Wyatt glanced over his shoulder and gave her the same kind of look usually reserved for hundred-pound boys trying out for the football team. "If I dumbed it down enough for you to understand, it would lose all meaning."

Andrea narrowed her eyes at the back of his head. "Try me."

"Fine, here's the grade school version," he huffed. "Andross specialized in biotechnology and biological entities. Just look at what he made during the war. But the biological information gathered from these fragments suggests the manipulation of a DNA pattern very close to base Lylatian configurations. Bluntly, I think the bioelectric energy can be infused into a living person. I don't know if that's what Andross intended – super soldiers wouldn't be that far fetched given his psychotic mentality – but it can be done and controlled."

"In theory," Beltino added. "Tell her what happened to your test rats."

Wyatt hesitated with a nervous fidget. He glanced at her again and muttered, "Much the same results as a gerbil in a microwave. I'd imagine. All science has its bumps that need to be ironed out."

The toad chortled. "Yes, well, finish up here and then check your mail account for your new assignment. You'll have plenty of time for sleep on the way."

"Whoa, wait!" He leapt up, nearly knocking the chair over. "Assignment to where? I need to keep working on Warlock."

"Once you and Corporal O'Donnell find the Great Fox, we can set up a data stream so you can conduct your research onboard. But first I need it up and running like new; heaven knows what shape it's in, or even if ROB is still active. And second to my son, you have the greatest working knowledge of TDE technology."

"But…but…" His bewildered eyes shifted to Andrea, whose equally lost expression only seemed to confuse him more. "But…"

"Good travels, doctor."

Beltino turned toward the door and gestured for the corporal to follow him, leaving Wyatt to slowly phase from addled to annoyed as he gruffly returned to his work.

When the glass door closed, leaving them in silence, Andrea spoke up. "Want to tell me what this is all about?"

"It's about bringing all my pieces into play," he replied. "Even at its age, the Great Fox is a stellar war machine, as are the Arwings. Almost as stellar as Fox McCloud himself. Find him, Corporal O'Donnell. Get him and the Great Fox back. Once you do, that ship will be your base of operations for your hunt. You can run the show however you see fit and, within reason, you'll have full TETRA support."

Andrea gave a curt nod and said, "Thanks," careful to keep her appreciation in check until the results matched the promise. "What about Doctor Sunshine in there?"

"He can be of greater help than he seems," Beltino assured, giving an exasperated look through the glass at Wyatt's angered typing. "He can help locate McCloud, and whatever state the Great Fox is in, he'll fix it. After that, keep him as your crew's technical officer, so long as he is made readily available if I need him for any fragments recovered out there. Seems a fair deal to retain the…second best TETRA mind on your team."

"Deal." Andrea glanced at him, seeing a twinge of pain that reference to Slippy evoked. "Listen, I wouldn't even know about my team without your help. If you need me when you find Slippy, I'm there."

Beltino nodded, his face unreadable. "A common goal. Let us hope our difference of priorities doesn't stand in the way."

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**_-Chapter 5 coming soon-_**


End file.
